December 2006 witnessed the increasing non-governmental exchanges and communications across the Straits. As some statistics show, during the first three seasons in 2006, 530 million phone calls had been made across the Straits, with an annual 15% increase, and lasted 1.79 billion minutes in total, with an annual 10% increase; and the watercraft shuttle from Jinmen and Mazu amounted to 278,000 person/times, with an annual 18.3 increase. Due to the development of telecommunication and the widespread of e-mail technique, the letters through post services across the Straits had sharply decreased 26%, and according to the statistics by the Chinese Post in Taiwan, people who wrote letters on paper amounted to 1-2% or so.