Continuing with the theme of “Expanding People-to-people Exchanges and Deepening Integrated Development”, this year’s forum encompasses 50 events, including the main forum event and other activities in four sectors – grassroots exchanges, youth exchanges, cultural exchanges, and economic exchanges.
The Straits Forum serves as an important platform for promoting extensive people-to-people exchanges and cooperation across the Strait. Over the past 16 years, it has always adhered to its “people-to-people, grassroots, and extensive” nature and has continuously expanded the “circle of friends” between people on both sides. From visits to ancestral homeland to economic and trade cooperation, from cultural exploration to discussions on people’s livelihood, and from youth exchanges to future envisioning, the forum has paved a broader path for cross-strait exchanges.
At the forum, Taiwanese participants talked about the opportunities presented by China’s modernization drive, shared their stories of chasing, building, and realizing dreams on the mainland, vividly annotating the stories of cross-strait integrated development. Fan Jiangfeng, who started his venture in Xiamen in 2014, has witnessed the development and progress across various fields on the mainland over the past 10 years. He has transitioned from an “entrepreneur” into a “facilitator”, becoming a force for Taiwanese youth starting businesses on the mainland and leading his team to facilitate exchanges for 40,000 young Taiwanese. Fan expressed his hope for more Taiwanese compatriots to participate in cross-strait exchanges, cooperation, and integrated development, as well as to join the process of national rejuvenation and share the historical opportunities of Chinese-style modernization.
It is introduced that this year’s forum will offer over 1,600 jobs for young people in Taiwan and promote the signing of multiple agreements between institutions and enterprises across the Strait in areas such as rural revitalization, Taiwan youth entrepreneurship, technology, culture, publishing, public welfare, finance, and more. It will facilitate the implementation of a batch of projects on cross-strait integrated development in Fujian province.
