Trade and people-to-people exchanges across the Taiwan Strait have increased in the past ten years.
In 2014, trade between the two sides was nearly 200 billion US dollars, with imports from Taiwan accounting for more than 75 percent. In 2005, the trade volume was above 90 billion US dollars. In the past ten years, that number doubled.
As for people to people exchanges, in 2005, around 4 million visits from Taiwan to the mainland were recorded. From the mainland, there were 160 thousand visits to Taiwan. In 2013, there was an increase with over 5 million visits from Taiwan to the mainland. But the year also saw an increase in the number of visits from the mainland to Taiwan to nearly 3 million.
The increase is ascribed to the opening up of the Taiwan tourism market to the mainland. Besides tourists, there have been increasing numbers of students from both sides studying across the Strait.
In 2012, around 15 thousand students from the mainland were studying in Taiwan for a short time. And in a survey in March by TVBS Television in Taiwan, over half of Taiwan residents aged 20 to 49 thought they could get better pay if they worked in the mainland. And over one- third of them said they wanted to build their career in the mainland.
