CHENGDU -- Taiwan residents have made 42.4 million trips to the Chinese mainland since 1987, when people-to-people exchanges formally reopened.

The number of mainland trips made by Taiwan residents grew at an annual rate of 14 percent over the past 20 years, said Shao Qiwei, director of China's National Tourism Administration (NTA), on Friday.

Mainland residents made 1.5 million trips to Taiwan in the same period, with an annual growth rate of about 19 percent, Shao said at a meeting of travel industry professionals from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The meeting opened on Friday in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan province.

Observers say there is a possibility that travel routes to Taiwan will open this year as non-governmental tourism organizations from the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have held several consultations on the issue and have already reached a consensus.

Shao said the Chinese mainland would work to promote the early opening of the travel routes.

Relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were estranged after a civil war in the late 1940s.