Xu Kuangdi, Honorary Chairman of CAE Governing Board, and Zhou Ji, President of CAE, together with Gan Yong, Vice President of CAE, met with a delegation of 6 people headed by Huang Qichuan, Chairman of the Metal Industries Research & Development Center (MIRDC), Taiwan of China. Both sides discussed extensively over cross-strait exchanges and cooperation during the meeting.

CAE President Zhou Ji extended warm welcome to visiting delegates on behalf of CAE in the first place, who then briefed on functions of CAE, especially on its four major missions, namely, strategic consultation, sci-tech services, academic guidance as well as talent cultivation, all centered on the construction of the national engineering science and technology think tank.

Huang Qichuan, Chairman of MIRDC, expressed thanks to CAE Honorary Chairman Xu Kuangdi for his leading 80 experts and leaders from the iron and steel community in mainland China to Taiwan in April, attending “Forum on Cross-Strait Metal Materials Industry (Iron and Steel) Cooperation and Exchanges”. Huang also said he was delighted to meet CAE Vice President Gan Yong in May. Huang also gave a briefing to the development of MIRDC, saying that the purpose of this visit to the mainland was to promote further exchange and collaboration between both sides in metal materials, especiallyin iron and steel materials, thus contributing to the further development of both sides. Huang expressed his hope that this forum evolve into a routine conference and the mainland China witness the opening of the next forum next year.

Xu extended thanks to Huang for his warm reception during his previous visit in Taiwan. Xu also said that paying a visit to Taiwan is more than just a technological exchange event. As a matter of fact, it could be viewed as family members residing on different sides of the Taiwan Straits to meet and tighten ties in between. Moreover, Xu said that as the world economy was in recession, the iron and steel and metal industries were also in the cold winter period. Therefore, in order to maintain proper economic development in China, more efforts should be made to further promote infrastructure construction and urbanization in central and western regions of China, as well as industrial technology transformation in eastern regions of China, thus improving the production levels and aiming at facing up to global competitions when the international market became warmer. Xu hoped earnestly that relevant personnel across the Taiwan Straits join hands in revitalizing the Chinese nation together. (By Xu Haiyan, September 2012; translated by Liu Chang)