"As far as I know, several big mainland companies are planning to set up research and development centers in Taiwan due to skilled computer engineers in Taiwan," said Chang Li, deputy secretary general with the overseas and industry service division of Taipei Computer Association.

Flat screen producers in Taiwan are also thinking of moving the manufacturing of large-sized screens to the mainland while focusing on developing more edgy small screens, Chang said.

Lu Hsin-chang, expert with the College of Management, Taiwan University, told Xinhua that the ECFA showed the two sides of the Strait were capable of maintaining peaceful long-term relations and thus gave confidence to both domestic and foreign investors.

Follow-up efforts expected

"We hope a commodity trade agreement can be signed as soon as possible," said Lin. "The list under the early harvest program only covers a small portion of cross-Strait trade."

Hsu Hsiu-tsang, TAMI chairman, supported Lin's remark.

Machine tool items listed in the early harvest program only account for one eighth of the total goods in the machinery industry, Hsu said.

He also expected that the investment protection agreement could be reached soon to facilitate more mainland counterparts to invest in Taiwan factories.

The mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and its Taiwan counterpart the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) have founded a committee to deal with ECFA follow-up talks. The committee first met in February.

Under the committee, four panels have been founded to discuss agreements of commodity trade, service trade, investment protection and conflict settlement and two other panels are about custom affairs and industry cooperation.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei in a recent report also urged Taiwan to relax restrictions on the investment in the Taiwan market by the mainland investors.