AUTHORITIES on the mainland and Taiwan today agreed to start weekend chartered flights across the Strait and both will set up representative offices on the other side.

The agreements were reached during talks between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing this morning, Pang Chien-kuo, SEF deputy secretary-general, said today, China News Service reported.

The offices will be responsible for facilitating exchanges and traveling across the Strait, he said.

Details will be finalized in further meetings between the two sides, he added.

Meanwhile, Chen Yunlin, the chairman of ARATS, has accepted an invitation to visit Taiwan this year, Xinhua news agency reported today.

Chen said he appreciated the invitation from Chiang Pin-kun, chairman of the SEF, and promised he would lead a delegation to Taiwan within the year, the Xinhua report said.

Chiang headed a delegation to the mainland yesterday and started a four-day visit discussing cross-Strait weekend charted flights and mainland tourists traveling to Taiwan.

The talks are the first between the SEF and ARATS after resuming contact after a nine year suspension of nine years.

Today's talks, which started at 9amy, were conducted amid a "down-to-earth and right" attitude which saw the two sides selecting easier problems first and beginning with economic issues, Xinhua quoted Chiao Jen-ho, former SEF vice chairman and secretary-general, as saying.

The ARATS and SEF are authorized non-governmental organizations engaged in talks on issues related to exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

ARATS was established in Beijing on December 16, 1991, to promote cross-Strait exchanges, develop cross-Strait relations and realize a peaceful reunification of China.

The SEF was established in Taipei on November 21, 1990. It was authorized by the Mainland Affairs Council under the "Executive Yuan" of Taiwan to deal with cross-Strait affairs deemed "inconvenient" for the Taiwan authority to handle.

In 1992 the two organizations held negotiations in Hong Kong on how to state "adherence to the one-China policy" and reached the "1992 Consensus."

In 1993, ARATS chairman Wang Daohan and SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu held talks in Singapore in the first public meeting between high-level figures in the name of non-governmental organization leaders since 1949.

The meeting between Wang and Koo established an institutionalized negotiation mechanism and marked an important step forward in the cross-Strait relations.

During the meeting, four agreements were signed to promote trade and people-to-people exchanges.
After the meeting, more than 20 consultations at different levels were held. In 1998, Wang and Koo met again in Shanghai.

Talks between the two sides were suspended in 1999 after the Taiwanese leader of the time, Li Teng-hui, proposed a "special state-to-state" model for cross-Strait relations.