Taipei  - Hong Kong's English-language daily the South China Morning Post plans to launch a bilingual newspaper in Taiwan in response to growing ties between China and Taiwan, a newspaper said on Sunday.

According to the Economic Daily News, the South China Morning Post plans to hire several economic and finance experts as it prepares to launch a Taiwan edition.

After hiring local reporters for political and economic affairs, the newspaper will launch a local online version of the Morning Post in six months' time, and decide later if it should also publish a print edition, the Economic Daily News quoted an unnamed source as saying.

The funding for the Taiwan version of the paper will come from Hong Kong, a trans-national bank in Taiwan and some members of Taiwan's ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

The Morning Post decided to launch a paper in Taiwan because it expects the island to play a greater role in economic and trade issues as a result of improved Taipei-Beijing ties since President Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly KMT took office on May 20.

The Economic Daily News said that the Morning Post first conducted a survey on the newspaper market in Taiwan.

Since Taiwan already has three English daily newspapers and its market for English papers is saturated, the newspaper decided to focus on online operations with most contents in English, but some information in Chinese.

The 106-year-old daily is the leading English newspaper in Hong Kong with some 100,000 subscribers and is known as one of the top- English-language dailies in Asia.

If it launches its Taiwan version, it will become the second Hong Kong newspaper to break into the Taiwan market. In 2003, Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai began publishing the Apple Daily and Next magazine in Taiwan.

Although initially criticized by Taiwan readers as gossipy and sensational, the Apple Daily quickly became the best-selling newspaper in Taiwan. It daily circulation has reached 526,000 copies and is threatening the survival of other dailies. The Next weekly is the best-selling news magazine in Taiwan. (dpa)