TAIPEI: In the latest effort to push for closer bilateral exchanges, Taiwan's top negotiator with the mainland yesterday proposed to expand recently launched cross-Straits charter flights and tourism schemes.

Chiang Pin-kun, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), made the appeal less than one month after his organization signed historic deals with its mainland counterpart on the two schemes.

Under landmark agreements signed on June 13 in Beijing between the SEF and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), Taipei agreed to open the island to mainland tourists and launch weekend charter flights.