MACAO, April 25 (Xinhuanet) -- China's mainland has issued 5.46 million individual travel passes to the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) by the end of February, a senior Chinese official said here on Monday. 

    Wang Liaoping, director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Department of the Ministry of Commerce said that the economic and trade relations between China's mainland and Macao are in the best time in history. 

    The Mainland/Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement in effect since the beginning of 2004 has ensured facilitated cooperation in finance, tourism and professional qualification attestation, said Wang at the Seminar of "the Strategic Development and Opportunities of the Economic Integration among Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao," which opened here on Monday. 

    The mainland and Macao have facilitated bilateral trade and investment policies with the trade volume between the two sides jumping 24.7 percent to reach 1.8 billion US dollars in 2004. The two sides will realize free cargo trade before 2006, said Wang. 

    By the end of March, the Macao Economic Bureau has issued 113 certificates of product origin, which help save 518,000 patacas (64,750 US dollars) of tariff on Macao's export to the mainland. The bureau also issued 199 service provider certificates allowing Macao investors to invest in cargo surrogating, transportation, warehouse, telecoms and retailing business in China's mainland.