The trade volume between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan reached 267.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, remaining at a high level, a mainland spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, quoted official statistics and noted that the mainland stays as the largest source of trade surplus for the island.

In the first 11 months of last year, the mainland approved 6,936 new investment projects by Taiwan businesses on the mainland, marking a year-on-year increase of 26.8 percent. The utilized Taiwan investment grew by 39.9 percent on a year-on-year basis, reaching 2.69 billion U.S. dollars, according to Chen.

As cross-Strait industrial cooperation deepens, Taiwan enterprises and businesspersons are showing stronger confidence in their investment and development on the mainland, Chen said.

The spokesperson also noted that after the mainland had achieved a smooth transition in its COVID-19 response, the personnel travel and exchanges in various fields between the two sides of the Strait have picked up quickly. Last year saw 3 million cross-Strait visits, with the number of Taiwan compatriots visiting the mainland growing 7.4 times from the previous year.

The facts revealed that compatriots on the two sides of the Strait share the same roots, culture and ethnic identity, and it is their natural emotion and simple desire to communicate and carry out exchanges and cooperation, a demand that the Democratic Progressive Party authorities can not thwart, Chen said.