Taiwan and China poised to launch direct postal exchange
Taiwan and mainland China are poised to set up direct postal link, which will halve the delivery time and postage cost, said Kao Kung-lian, secretary general of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), yesterday (Oct. 15).
The postal link will cover not only common mails but also parcels and express-delivery packages carried out by Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. and its Chinese counterparts, according to Kao.
The statement was confirmed by Yang Yi, spokesman of Taiwan Affairs Office of China`s State Council, who said yesterday that direct postal link will be a major topic in the talk between Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), and P.K. Chiang, SEF chairman, during the former`s upcoming visit to Taiwan. The talks will also cover such issues as direct shipping link, direct charter freight flight, direct charter passenger flight on weekdays, and direct cross-Strait flight route.
Taiwan and mainland China are poised to set up direct postal link, which will halve the delivery time and postage cost, said Kao Kung-lian, secretary general of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), yesterday (Oct. 15).
The postal link will cover not only common mails but also parcels and express-delivery packages carried out by Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. and its Chinese counterparts, according to Kao.
The statement was confirmed by Yang Yi, spokesman of Taiwan Affairs Office of China`s State Council, who said yesterday that direct postal link will be a major topic in the talk between Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), and P.K. Chiang, SEF chairman, during the former`s upcoming visit to Taiwan. The talks will also cover such issues as direct shipping link, direct charter freight flight, direct charter passenger flight on weekdays, and direct cross-Strait flight route.
“Conditions for the agreements on those issues are already in place and China is ready to sign the agreements, the hope of their early implementation,” said Yang.
An official of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications noted that there exist no technical problems for the direct postal link. In the wake of the talks between late Koo Chen-fu, former SEF chairman, and Wang Daohan, former ARATS chairman, in Singapore, indirect cross-Strait mail exchange, mainly for common and registered letters, was launched in 1993. Cross-Strait postal exchange now boasts 10 million mails a year, mainly via the transit points of Hong Kong and Japan. As a result of the indirect arrangement, it will take five to seven days for an express mail from Taipei to reach Beijing or Shanghai, an inconvenience complicated by the extra shipping and handling costs for the transit spots.
