MOU on cross-strait financial cooperation may be inked in Beijing.

Taipei, Oct. 20, 2009 (CENS) -- The memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial supervision cooperation between the two sides of Taiwan Strait is reportedly set at the end of this month or early next month, and China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) is said actively inviting Sean Chen, chairman of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) to sign the pact in Beijing.

It is understood that Kao Koong-lian, vice chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and his Chinese counterpart Zheng Lizhong, vice chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), earlier held a meeting in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, touching on the signing of MOU issue.

During the meeting, Zheng called for both sides to sign MOU in Beijing instead of Taipei, because China does not want to see Taiwan's opposition party stage violent protest on the island again. Similar protest happened late last year when ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin made his first visit to Taiwan for holding a historical cross-strait talk with his counterpart SEF Chairman P.K. Chiang.

In fact, after several rounds of discussions, both sides have reached consensus on some key points, including cooperation in monitoring operations of each other's financial institutions, mutual assistance in monetary control, exchange of branches of financial institutions, mutual business assistance and financial information exchanges.

So far seven Taiwanese banks have already established representative offices in China and they hope to quickly upgrade the offices there to branches soon after financial cooperation MOU is signed.

((JL))(GE)