Taipei, Feb.11, 2010 (CENS)--Jimmy Chu, chairman of Fair Friend Group, recently advocated that Taiwan and China should enhance cooperation and interchange to further build mutual industrial investment and competitiveness. Fair Friend is one of Taiwan`s leading manufacturers of machine tools with factories in China.

Chu made the remark at a cross-strait machinery and automobile cooperation conference recently held in Taipei. A total of 200-strong persons from the machinery and automobile sectors across the Taiwan Strait took part in the conference. The participants hoped that a platform should be set up with the aim of sharing experiences and launching long-term strategic cooperation across the Taiwan Strait.

Chu said machinery should be included in the "early-harvest" list in the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) to be signed by both sides.

He noted Taiwan-made machine tools are more competitively priced than that from Japan, the U.S. and Europe, estimating that Taiwan-made items are only 70% the prices in Japan and about half that in Germany.

At present, Taiwan`s machinery-tool manufacturers focus on high-tier products while those of China still concentrate on low-end products. In this situation, Chu called for China`s machine shops to adopt the price-competitive Taiwan-made high-tier machine tools to boost their production efficiency. In this way, Taiwan will supplant Japan and South Korea in the high-tier machine-tool market across the Taiwan Strait.

China`s Fujian Industry and Economic Association said in line with national industrial development policy, Fujian province will make all-out efforts to consolidate its automobile industry. At present, there are seven automobile firms in Fujian province. It is expected the province will roll out 400,000 automobiles in 2011, representing a conspicuous growth from last year`s 280,000.

As China is aggressive to develop own-brand automobiles, the government-backed Institute for Information Institute believed there is ample room for the cooperation of Taiwan`s electronics industry and China`s automobile industry as Taiwan has laid solid foundation in the development of vehicle-use electronic devices.

(by Ben Shen)