OREANDA-NEWS. November 19, 2013. Representatives from the petrochemical industries in Taiwan and China are keen on working together, they said at a summit for entrepreneurs in the Chinese city of Nanjing.

For Taiwan, which is hard-pressed to meet its own energy needs, cooperation can bring big benefits, said Zhang Guobao, the former head of China's National Energy Administration.

The two sides have not worked together in petrochemicals because of political factors, leaving a lot of room for development, he said.

"Taiwan attaches great importance to energy resources and petrochemical cooperation will be a major issue of economic security," echoed Shih Yen-hsiang, a former Taiwanese economic minister.

Shih proposed three possible directions for cross-strait cooperation, including energy conservation and carbon reduction, oil and gas exploration, and renewable energy.

Those could be followed by joint refining and naphtha cracking and cooperation in parts and components for machine tools, including equipment for automated production, transportation and environmental protection.

Out of the seven sectors focused on in the summit, the petrochemical industry is considered to be the one where businesses across the Taiwan Strait see the most eye-to-eye.

The two-day event, which started Monday, brought together over 300 participants, including Taiwan's former Vice President Vincent Siew and Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.