His view was echoed by his compatriot Zhang Benxian, executive president of the Cross-Straits Association on Human Resources and Science and Technology Industry Exchanges.

Zhang said that cross-Straits enterprises should make full use of their complementary advantages and enhance cooperation in fields such as agricultural machinery and smart processing machinery.

Longyan, the host city, also aspires to expand cooperation with Taiwan from its current focus on the machinery industry to several other fields.

Longyan shall further deepen cross-Straits cooperation in the future and nurture a set of pillar industries in the city, such as machinery, cultural tourism and geriatric nursing.

Longyan strives to build three hundred-billion-yuan industry clusters by the end of 2020, pledged Lin Xinglu, the city's mayor.

The expo, jointly sponsored by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Fujian provincial government and the China Machinery Industry Federation, has gradually grown to be an important communication platform for cross-Straits companies in the machinery sector.

Covering an exhibition area of 24,000 square meters, the expo has 1,200 booths, displaying large assorted machinery products, such as automobiles, robots, numerically-controlled machine tools, laser cutting facilities and mechanical parts.

Excavators displayed at the expo look like small toys from a bird’s eye view. [Photo/Xinhua]