The semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) opened a center in the city of Taichung yesterday to offer voluntary legal counseling to better serve people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
SEF Chairman Chang Chun-hsiung (
Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Huang Wei-feng (
Amid ever-increasing cross-strait exchanges, the SEF is always seeking to better serve the Taiwanese people in the face of a lack of government-to-government contact between the two sides, Chang said, noting that the SEF also opened a legal service center for China-based Taiwan businessmen in June last year.
The SEF is planning to establish special telephone lines in the months ahead to provide assistance to Chinese spouses of Taiwan citizens here, Chang added.
According to Huang, people from Taiwan and China exchanged a total of 4.11 million visits last year.
The number of Taiwanese citizens residing in China has already hit around 1 million, and more and more disputes are arising from frequent cross-strait activities, he said, expressing hope that the SEF's legal counseling service can help reduce friction.
The SEF's legal counseling service center in Taichung will provide free consultation services twice a week on a wide variety of issues, including cross-strait marriages, the criminal and civil codes, administrative appeals and laws related to intellectual property protection and personal safety.
Many Taiwan businessmen with operations in China are from central areas, in particular Taichung, where a large number of traditional businesses are clustered.
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