The picture shows Taipei mayor Eric Chu, also Chairman of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT), attending a "Taiwan Hong Kong Forum" in Hong Kong March 9, 2015. [Photo: CFP]

Taiwan's service sector is calling for more support and access to the mainland market.

Taiwan businessman Huang Jinneng is among a delegation of business leaders from Taiwan currently visiting the mainland.

"I am always telling them it is a now or never chance to invest and do business here. It is such a big market with so much potential. Like me, now I'm operating 1,000 laundry shops. You can see how big and lovely the market is."

Huang's laundry business has expanded to over a thousand shops and employs more than 6-thousand people on the mainland since he began operating on the mainland in 1997.

He says the current regulatory environment needs to be improved if more cross-strait business development is going to happen.

"Under current regulations, Taiwan businessmen are not allowed to buy business properties in the Chinese mainland. We can only buy residential properties here. I hope more opportunities will be open to us as we are one family."

Last year some 600 companies from Taiwan set up operations in Shanghai.

Nearly three-quarters of them are SMEs in the service sector.