The Chinese mainland and Taiwan started direct air and sea transport and postal services on Monday amid warming ties, ending a 59-year ban on such links.

Formerly, air and sea movements -- including mail -- had to go by way of a third place.

The direct daily transport started as a mainland-based Shenzhen Airlines flight took off from the Shenzhen Airport for Taipei at 7:20 a.m.(2320 GMT Sunday), which was followed by a Taiwan-based TransAsia Airways jetliner from Taipei to Shanghai.

The first day witnessed 16 flights between Taipei and six mainland cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin and Guangzhou, which were nearly 90 percent full.

More flights will be opened late this week, linking more cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Dalian, Haikou, Xiamen in the mainland and Kaohsiung and Taichung in Taiwan.

The direct air links will cut flight time significantly as planes are no longer required to fly through Hong Kong's airspace, a detour that the Taiwan authorities formerly insisted on citing security concerns.

It now takes 90 minutes, compared with two and half hours previously, to fly from Shanghai to Taipei because the distance has been shortened to 950 kilometers from 1,900 km, said Su Langen, an official with the mainland's Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The Mainland's State Council Taiwan Affairs Office Executive Deputy Director, Zhang Lizhong, said the start of direct flights marked a key step in the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.

"Given the global financial crisis, cross-Strait direct flights started at exactly the right time," Zheng said at a ceremony in Shanghai. Direct links "will help the mainland and Taiwan jointly overcome the current (economic) difficulty," Zheng said.

The launch of direct links came after the two sides signed a series of landmark agreements last month in Taipei.

Under the agreements, the two sides agreed to launch regular passenger charter flights, which formerly only flew on weekends and the four major traditional festivals.

The mainland agreed to open another 16 terminals for passenger charter flights, besides the five already opened, while Taiwan has already opened eight terminals. The number of flights will increase to 108 every week with the number to be adjusted according to demand.

They also agreed to launch direct charter cargo flights between two mainland terminals, Pudong in Shanghai and Guangzhou airports, and two Taiwan terminals, Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.

There will be 60 return cargo flights per month, evenly divided between mainland and Taiwan airlines. The first flight was conducted by the China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou to Taipei on Monday afternoon.

DIRECT SEA AND MAIL LINKS

Monday also marked the start of direct shipping and postal services across the 300-km-long, 150-km-wide Taiwan Strait which controls the seaway between China's north and south.

Zheng Jian, 81, became the first mainland resident to post a direct mail to his Taiwan relatives at a ceremony on Monday morning in Beijing.

Born in Taiwan, Zheng left for the mainland to attend college shortly before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. And since then his family was separated.

"What is good for me is that with a direct postal service, I can mail the herbal medicine I bought here to my younger sister in Taiwan directly," he said.

A similar ceremony was held in Taipei, at which Taiwan's Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. Chairman Wu Min-Yu posted an express letter to Liu Andong, president of the mainland's China Post Corp.

An employee of Chunghwa Post told Xinhua that the mail was scheduled to leave on a 10 a.m. flight from Taipei to Beijing. "Mr. Liu will probably receive the mail before he leaves his office this afternoon," the worker said.

The mainland and Taiwan did not have direct express mail service in the past. Ordinary or registered mail from Taiwan to the mainland first went through the Hong Kong or Macao Special Administrative Regions, then to distribution centers in Beijing or Shanghai before it was delivered.

With the start of direct air and shipping services, Taiwan transport authorities estimated that the delivery time of ordinary letters from Taiwan to Beijing or Shanghai will be shortened to five to six days from the previous seven to eight days.

To speed up mail services, the mainland has agreed to open three more delivery centers in Nanjing, Xi'an and Chengdu in addition to the previous five centers -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Fuzhou.

Taiwan also agreed to add three centers -- Kaohsiung, Kinmen and Matsu -- to those already functioning, which were Taipei and Keelung.

Also on Monday morning, a freighter of the mainland-based China Shipping Group left Tianjin port for Keelung in Taiwan, starting the first direct voyage across the Strait. Shortly afterwards, another mainland cargo ship left Taicang port in eastern Jiangsu Province for the island.

Mei Zhengrong, director of the Taicang Port Management Office, said the vessels no longer need to make detours to southwestern Japan's Ishigaki island en route to Taiwan.

"The distance and time from Taicang to a Taiwan port will be shortened by 200 nautical miles and 36 hours," Mei told Xinhua. "It will reduce fuel and visa costs by 10,000 U.S. dollars each trip."

Mainland transport authorities have estimated that direct shipping would help the two sides reduce the annual aggregate shipping time by 110,000 hours and transportation costs by 100 million U.S. dollars.

Under the agreement on direct shipping, passenger and cargo vessels owned by mainland and Taiwan companies may sail directly across the Strait subject to official approval.

The mainland will open 63 ports to Taiwan ships while Taiwan will open 11. The two sides might increase the number of ports based on a "developing situation," according to the agreement.

SIGN OF RECONCILIATION

With annual bilateral trade volume surpassing 100 billion U.S. dollars, the new direct links were welcomed by most on both sides. Ceremonies to mark the direct links drew many dignitaries, business tycoons and created a media frenzy.

State Council Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi and Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang Honorary Chairman Lien Chan met at a port in Tianjin to celebrate the start of cross-Strait direct shipping.

"Today is another memorable date in the history of cross-Strait relations ... which signifies that our 30-year effort has finally paid off," Wang said.

Wang said direct shipping links will greatly cut costs, boost cross-Strait trade and personnel exchanges and provide a "new impetus" for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.

He said the start of direct transport and mail services showed that regardless of difficulties, anything could be realized so long as it would benefit compatriots across the Strait and meet development needs.

"The peaceful development of cross-Strait relations is unstoppable. The prospect of the peaceful development is brighter," he said.

In south Taiwan's Kaohsiung port, Taiwan leader Ma Ying-Jeou attended a ceremony to witness a container ship departing for Tianjin, carrying textiles, chemical and paper products.

Calling the direct links a symbol of "reconciliation" between the island and the mainland, Ma expressed the hope that the two sides could work together for common peace and prosperity.

Ma said he was "happy and satisfied" because direct cross-Strait links marked an era of negotiation and reconciliation instead of confrontation between the two sides.

CLOSER TIES EXPECTED

The largest trading partner of Taiwan since 2003, the mainland now hosts more than one million Taiwanese investors, students, employees and residents. Mainland statistics by July showed that Taiwan had invested over 46.4 billion dollars in 76,000 projects.

The launch of direct links has been widely seen as creating new opportunities for lower cost, greater efficiency and competitiveness for the mainland and Taiwan businesses which both felt pinch of global economic woes.

Li Mao-sheng, chairman of the Shanghai-based Federation of Taiwan Investors, told Xinhua that his plastic-manufacturing company would hugely benefit from direct shipping because of the cut in logistics costs.

"Thanks to more convenient and freer flows of capitals, human resources and technologies, Taiwanese investors can upgrade their business plans in the mainland," said Ding Kunhua from the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland.

"Economic ties will be further enhanced once the investment transfers from manufacturing industry to service sectors such as financial service and logistics," he said.

Taiwan businessman Fang Ting-yuh said he had been expecting the direct travel since he launched an electronics company in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, in 1992. Yangzhou is about 2.5 hours away from Shanghai by car.

"Now it's possible to commute between my home in Taiwan and the factory in Yangzhou on a daily base," he said. "It's good to feel that my home is closer to me."

Markets on both sides of the Strait reacted positively on Monday, with Taiwan share prices closing up 2.96 percent.

The Taiwan stock market opened at 4,604 and the weighted index rose 132 points at 4,613 upon close with turnover of 71.11 billion Taiwan dollars (about 2.14 billion US).

Mainland market shares rose 0.52 percent on Monday, with shares of companies involved in providing transport services between the mainland and Taiwan rose by a big margin.

Xiamen Port Development rose 7.22 percent to finish at 7.72 yuan (1.127 U.S. dollars). Fujian Zhangzhou Development went up 4.93 percent to 3.19 yuan. Xiamen International Airport was up 3.48 percent to 13.69 yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2008)