BEIJING - A Chinese mainland official on Thursday expressed hope that the cross-Straits service trade pact will come into effect at an early date so that it can benefit people on both sides.

Ministry of Commerce (MOC) spokesman Shen Danyang told a news briefing that the pact is beneficial to people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

"We should respect the authority of the pact agreed on by the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF)," said Shen.

Signed in June last year as a follow-up to the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), the service trade pact aims to open up 80 of the mainland's service sectors to Taiwan and 64 of Taiwan's sectors to the mainland.