Last year witnessed growing momentum in the peaceful development of ties between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, a mainland Taiwan affairs spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a regular press conference in Beijing, that the mainland and Taiwan authorities had advanced mutual understanding and maintained sound interaction during 2010.

Meetings between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) had been institutionalized and three agreements, including the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), were signed.

Fan said cross-Strait trade had boomed. Trade volume from January to November 2010 reached a record 131.7 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 39.7 percent year on year.

Over the same period, the mainland approved 2,727 Taiwan-invested projects, an increase of 21.9 percent year on year, while 47 mainland corporations invested 137 million U.S. dollars in their Taiwan-based businesses, with mainland investors in Taiwan increasing to 63.

Cross-Strait financial cooperation also made headway, said Fan. Six Taiwan banks had been approved to open branches on the mainland, and five had started business. Three banks from the mainland also got approval to run representative offices in Taiwan.

Progress was also made in people-to-people exchanges, said Fan. From January to November, 4.68 million residents of Taiwan visited the mainland, up by 13.6 percent, and 1.49 million mainland residents visited Taiwan, up by 69.6 percent year on year.

Some 1.16 million mainland tourists visited Taiwan during the past year, a year-on-year increase of 92.6 percent. The mainland had become the largest source of tourists for Taiwan, said Fan.

Fan cited examples of cross-Strait cultural exchanges last year such as the production of director Zhang Yimou's version of Turandot and a display of antiques from Inner Mongolia and Tibet in Taiwan, and the joint compilation of Chinese dictionaries by scholars from both sides.

Fan said the mainland hoped both sides could work towards signing an agreement on cultural exchanges.

The timetable for the potential start of individual travel to Taiwan by mainland tourists was yet to be determined, said Fan. At present, mainland tourists can only visit Taiwan on package tours.

Fan said the mainland would continue this year to encourage mainland businesses to invest in Taiwan; offer greater support to mainland-based Taiwan enterprises in their industrial upgrading; promote the construction of the economic zone on the western side of the Taiwan Strait, and boost cooperation in finance, a modern services industry and agriculture.