RMB-NTD exchange has soared since Haixia, the first direct passenger ferry across the Taiwan Straits, opened its currency exchange service in November 2012. It took only half a month for the on-board exchange service to account for 39 percent of the total RMB-NTD exchange in 2012 in the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone.

From Nov 15 to Dec 31, 2012, the Haixia traveled 19 times between Pingtan and Taichung in Taiwan. It tallied a total RMB-NTD exchange value of 2.55 million yuan ($410,040), according to statistics from the People's Bank of China Fuzhou branch.

In the pilot zone as a whole, the total amount of exchange was 6.67 million yuan in 2012, an increase of 10.34 times from the previous year.

"The on-board RMB-NTD exchange service has made cross-Straits communication more convenient," said Zhu Qiding, a Taiwan businessman investing in Pingtan.

The Haixia, shuttling between Pingtan and Taichung, went into service in November 2012 and has transported more than 100,000 passengers to date. People from the finance industry called it a golden channel for cross-Straits transportation and communication. Its exchange service is expected to continuously drive RMB-NTD exchange in the pilot zone.

Bank of China was the first to provide exchange services in Pingtan in April 2010. The State Council's overall development plan for the pilot zone provides preferential policies for the cross-Straits finance industry by allowing qualified financial institutions to run RMB-NTD exchange services in Pingtan.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Michael Thai