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There are no political motives behind the setting up of a special economic zone in China's southern Fujian province that is open to Taiwan investment, a mainland official said.

The Pingtan Experimental Zone "belongs to the economic domain", and is not an experimental laboratory for the "One Country, Two Systems" policy, Yang Yi, spokesman of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

Yang highlighted the attractiveness of the mainland's economic policies and urged Taiwan to reciprocate.

With an area of about 324 square km, Pingtan is the closest mainland island to Taiwan. The mainland aims to channel 60 billion yuan (US$9.53 billion) to develop the zone this year, targeting an overall investment of 250 billion yuan ($39.6 billion) during the 2011-15 period, Fujian Governor Su Shulin said in Taiwan's Hsinchu city on March 25.

Su, who went on a five-day visit to Taiwan on March 26, said that the Pingtan project is a goodwill "package" sent across the Straits.

"We would like to open the package and let everyone look inside to see whether the gift comes from genuine goodwill or has strings attached," Su said in a speech on Tuesday when he met Lien Chan, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang, Taiwan's ruling party.

"If the answer is positive, we are ready to offer it at anytime," he said.

"I believe Pingtan will become a modern metropolis within a decade," he said.

Tang Yonghong, deputy director of the economic research office of the Taiwan Research Institute in Xiamen University, said some Taiwan politicians have overreacted and targeted the development of Pingtan as political.

How to develop Pingtan on a mutually satisfactory basis should be done after comprehensive talks, he said.

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China opens economic zone to Taiwan