BEIJING -- The 8th Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum is scheduled to be held on July 28 and 29 in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province, a mainland official said Wednesday.

The theme of the forum is "deepening peaceful development, benefiting people across the Strait," Fan Liqing told a State Council Taiwan Affairs Office press conference.

The forum, initiated in 2006, is sponsored by the Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party of China.