TIANJIN, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Tianjin-Taiwan trade fair held in north China's Tianjin Municipality highlights cooperation and communication.

The four-day event, started on Thursday, is known as a major platform for business cooperation between Tianjin and Taiwan, attracting about 600 Taiwan-funded companies this year, according to the organizer.

People from both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same family and they should cooperate, Chiang Hsiao-yen, former vice chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang Party, said during the event.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

"I have attended the fair since 2010, for the mainland has a big market," said Huang Shih-Kai, the third successor of his family business "Hairui Meatballs" founded in 1948 at the city of Hsinchu in Taiwan.

He established partnerships with DaChan Food (Asia) Limited, a food processing company at the fair in 2014, and built a manufacturing plant in Tianjin.

"It is a fair full of business opportunities," Huang said, his products now covering the northern China market thanks to the plant.

Mavis Chou, supply chain department deputy general manager of Namchow Food Group (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. echoed Huang's view, "many companies negotiated cooperation with me during the fair."

Wu Ming-chi, deputy mayor of New Taipei City of Taiwan, said at the fair that New Taipei hoped to further cooperate with Tianjin in fields such as tourism, culture and high technology.

As of July 2019, a total of 2,431 Taiwan-funded enterprises have invested in Tianjin, with a total contractual investment of 17.58 billion U.S. dollars, according to Tianjin's Taiwan Affairs Office.

Zhang Yanmei, assistant vice president of Xiabuxiabu Catering Management (China) Holdings Co., Ltd., said many Taiwanese employees at her company have benefited from the "31 measures," a spate of preferential policies for Taiwan compatriots unveiled by the mainland in February.

The 31 measures cover a wide range of fields including industry, finance and taxation, land use, employment, education and health care.

The mainland has done a lot to protect the rights and interests of Taiwan business people, who in turn have made contributions to the economic development and vitality of the mainland, Chiang said.

WORK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF STRAIT

To help more young people from Taiwan to find jobs on the mainland, a job fair was held on the sidelines of the fair.

The job fair attracted more than 50 Taiwan job hunters and 19 companies, including Tianjin (Binhai) Offshore Entrepreneurial Base for Overseas Professionals, Career International and Unicloud.com.

Feng Tzung-lin, who works for a Tianjin-based, Taiwan-funded company specializing in training models and actors, said his company has employed more than 10 teachers from Taiwan, accounting for about half of the company's staff.

"The job fair is a platform for meeting more job seekers from Taiwan, and we hope to offer them more internships and jobs," Feng said.

Chou Yi-jung, a Taiwan student from the School of Civil Engineering at Tianjin University, came to the fair to learn about the job opportunities for Taiwan compatriots. "The mainland has a big market with immense opportunities. I hope to find a creative job on the mainland in the future."

Yu Weizhong, deputy director of Tianjin's Taiwan Affairs Office, said over 100 Taiwan students studied at more than 10 Tianjin universities and more than 20 Taiwan compatriots worked as teachers at six universities in Tianjin in 2018.