A team from Country Garden, a Chinese property development company, visited Pingtan in east China's province of Fujian, on June 20 to evaluate investment prospects.

The Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone is the Chinese mainland's first economic zone which opened up to Taiwan in a bid to build a common homeland, said Gong Qinggai, director of the Pingtan administrative committee.

He added that - after three years of construction - Pingtan now meets the basic conditions for maintaining cross-Straits connections and will strive to become a cross-Straits logistics and services hub, which will create great potential for development.

Country Garden has been paying attendion to the construction of the West-Straits Economic Area and hopes to sign projects in Pingtan as soon as possible, said Chen Guangyu, a regional president of the company.

Established in 1992, Country Garden is one of China's leading integrated property developers, with businesses covering construction, installation, fitting, property development, property management, as well as hotel development and management. Its market value was $7.6 billion in 2011, according to Forbes.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman