AFP - Chinese firms will buy two billion dollars of flat-screen monitors from Taiwanese companies as part of a pledge to aid the island's economy in the face of the global downturn, state media reported.
  
Wang Yi, director of the Communist Party's Taiwan Affairs Office, made the announcement at a forum between officials and businessmen from the two sides that ended Sunday, the Xinhua news agency said.
  
Other measures agreed included a Chinese offer for Taiwanese businesses on the mainland of 19 billion dollars in financing over the next three years, Xinhua said.
  
Relations between China and Taiwan have improved rapidly since the election in March of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who has promised closer ties.
  
His election ended eight years of rule by Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence rhetoric inflamed China.