The 11th Cross-Straits Machinery Industry Expo commences on Nov 8 in Longyan, East China's Fujian province. [Photo by Wang Yi/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The 11th Cross-Straits Machinery Industry Expo commenced on Nov 8 in Longyan, East China's Fujian province. The expo's launch was attended by more than 500 government officials and enterprise representatives.

This year's expo runs from Nov 8-10 and has six special exhibition zones, including engineering and environmental protection machinery, special vehicles and emergency equipment and intelligent manufacturing. More than 620 enterprises from 10 countries and regions are showcasing their latest mechanical equipment at the expo.

Under the theme "cross-Straits cooperation, win-win development", the expo covers an exhibition area of 30,000 square meters. More than 20 business and trade activities will be staged during the expo, aiming to promote cross-Straits cooperation.

Zhang Zhijun, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, said that Taiwan enterprises should take an active role in integrating into the mainland's development and achieve win-win results.

Zhang added that since the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak, the mainland has rolled out an array of favorable policies to help Taiwan enterprises resume normal production and operations as soon as possible.

Initiated in 2010 in Longyan, the expo has grown into one of the most significant events across the Straits. The event has promoted business and trade cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan and injected strong impetus into the high-quality development of Longyan's machinery and equipment industry, according to Li Jiancheng, Party secretary of Longyan.

The organizing committee said that 42 project contracts had been signed at the expo so far, bringing in a total investment of 24.42 billion yuan ($3.7 billion).