CRI听力:"Free Landing" of Taiwan Visitors on the Mainland Begins

The new electronic pass cards will be issued in Fujian as of this coming Monday.

Zhang Dongli, head of the province's Entry and Exit Bureau, says the new cards will eventually replace the current travel passes still required for people from Taiwan to enter the mainland.

"There are obviously two differences: first, an electronic pass card is easier to carry around; second, those pages designed for entry permit stamps will no longer exist. And one more thing which is important is that we will add an intelligence chip into the pass card. "

Current travel pass booklets held by travellers from Taiwan will remain valid until the booklet's expiration date.

The new electronic cards are part of a broader move by mainland authorities to make travel from Taiwan much more convenient.

As of this Wednesday, people from Taiwan no longer have to go through the application process for the visa-like entry permit to enter the mainland.

The first flight from Taipei to Beijing under the relaxed procedures arrived on Wednesday morning.

Reporter Wang Mingyi with the Taiwan-based "China Times" newspaper was on that flight.

"Before landing entry permits were issued, we usually applied to travel agencies for a visa-like entry permit two weeks ahead of our visits. Then ports like Beijing and Shanghai opened landing entry permits services. All we need to do was to fill in a form of application upon arrival and submit a photo. It cost 50 yuan and only took 5 to ten minutes. After the removal of the visa-like entry permit, so we don't need to queue up at the permit counter. And it takes 20 seconds to pass the border quarantine counter. Thus this brings great convenience to people who often travel across the straits."

Wang Mingyi says the relaxed procedures are definitely going to help increase cross-strait exchanges.

"I think in terms of the procedural convenience, either media or ordinary people, they are welcoming this policy and are expecting good results. Nearly 8 to 9 million people from Taiwan travel to the mainland annually. Each person can save an entry permit fee of 50 yuan. Meanwhile, a lot of time, man powers and resources can also been saved. So this can to a larger degree contribute to cross-straits exchanges."

Last year, people from Taiwan made 5.4 million trips to the mainland.

Conversely, some 4-million trips were made from the mainland to Taiwan last year, up dramatically from the 280-thousand trips made in 2008 when authorities in Taiwan first began allowing direct flights.

Under the previous rules, people from the mainland hoping to travel to Taiwan had to sign up for group tours, and had to fly through a non-mainland connection, normally Hong Kong, before being allowed to enter Taiwan.

For CRI, I'm Wang Wei.