China says ready for launching post service with Taiwan

Beijing, Dec.14 (ANI): A Chinese mainland official has been quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying that China is ready to launch a direct postal service across the Taiwan Straits from next Monday.

According to the news agency, the direct postal service would end a situation that has prevailed since 1949, under which air, sea and postal movements between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have gone through a third place.

The agency quoted Wang Yuci, deputy head of the State Post Bureau of China, as saying that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Xi'an, Nanjing and Chengdu in the Chinese mainland, and Taipei, Kaohsiung, Keelung, Kinmen and Matsu of Taiwan were selected as regional distribution centers for the service.

Distribution centers would be adjusted or added based on future needs, he added.

New services between post bureaux across the Taiwan Straits including express mail, parcel post, and postal remittances would start from next Monday to meet the needs of people on both sides, he said.

Before, only registered mails were allowed to be sent across the Taiwan Straits following an agreement signed by the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in 1993.

Parcels, remittances and express mails could only be sent via Hong Kong and Macao.

However, the official said the new postal remittance service would be carried out by phases because of technical problems. (ANI)