Cooperation conference links Hunan with Taiwan

The 2023 Hunan-Taiwan Cooperation Conference on Economy and Trade will be held in Hunan province's Changsha, Zhangjiajie and Chenzhou from Thursday to Sunday.

More than 500 representatives from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan are expected to attend the conference, including more than 300 entrepreneurs from Taiwan. Since it began in 2005, the conference has been held 15 times, said Zeng Zhifu, director of the Taiwan affairs office of the Communist Party of China's Hunan Committee.

It will be the first conference on trade and economic cooperation between Hunan and Taiwan since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 and will be the largest one in the past 10 years, he said at a news conference hosted by the information office of the Hunan provincial government.

Meanwhile, a cross-Strait event commemorating the Yan Emperor, believed to be an original ancestor of the Chinese people, will be held in Zhuzhou, Hunan, on Saturday.

Around 800 representatives from the mainland and Taiwan are expected to attend the event, including more than 500 Taiwan residents who have never visited Hunan before.

They will visit famous scenic areas and enterprises in Hunan to gain a firsthand understanding of the modern development of the mainland, Zeng said.