(Xinhua 2008-07-05 17:29:02)--Taiwan media and business people on Saturday welcomed the new weekend charter flights carrying mainland tourists as good news for ties across the Taiwan Strait and for the economy.

The event made headlines such as "We have been waiting for this moment for 60 years!", "Spring time for Taiwan aviation industry," and "a day trip across the Strait".

Taiwan's United Daily News devoted three full pages to the flights with stories headlined "Soybean milk at Yonghe (a popular Taiwan fastfood chain store) for breakfast and steamed buns for lunch in Shanghai," "No more transfers and win your afternoon back". One of stories, titled "A business trip to Shanghai in one day", described how the charter flights could change a Taiwan business person's life.

A commentary by writer Yang Du in the same newspaper said charter flights and mainland tourists would "draw the cross-Strait cultures even closer to each other psychologically".

Taiwan's "China Times" published an editorial that said "weekend charter flights will change Taiwan people's lives", and "will help develop Taiwan's economy with a much freer flow of people and investment".

Meanwhile, business people in Taiwan also hailed the events as economically beneficial to Taiwan.

Taiwan Business Association chairman Chang Ping-Chao took a charter flight of Taiwan's China Airlines on Friday from Taipei to Beijing. The seven or eight-hour trip had been reduced to four hours.

"So I arrived in Beijing at 1:30 p.m. and still had the afternoon and evening available," Chang said.

China Airlines spokesman Chen Peng-Yu said the mainland economy had been developing rapidly, but Taiwan's airline companies could not get a share of the mainland market before. The weekend charter flights would enable them to have a more complete network and develop better.

Taiwan Federation of Travel Association chairman Yao Ta-Juang said a mainland tourist spent an average of 1,785 U.S. dollars during a group trip to Taiwan. It could be estimated that if 3,000 mainland tourists arrived everyday after July 18, it would bring 1.7 billion U.S. dollars to Taiwan's tourist industry, and help revitalize the economy.

"Weekend charter flights carrying the first group of mainland tourists to Taiwan is a new start for the cross-Strait relationship. It might not be a big step, but it is quite essential, especially in terms of revitalizing Taiwan's economy, improving the mutual understanding of people on both sides and promoting the peaceful development of the cross-Strait relationship," said Chang Ling-Chen, honorary professor of the department of politics of Taiwan University.

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