KEELUNG, Taiwan (AFP) - Taiwan rolled out the red carpet Monday for the biggest group of Chinese tourists to arrive on the island since the launch of direct transport links with mainland China last year.

A passenger ship docked in northern Keelung harbour, close to the capital Taipei, bringing some 1,600 tourists from Shanghai, who walked ashore on a red carpet laid out in their honour.

"We have long anticipated the trip," said one man who arrived here with his fiancee, adding that they planned to hold their wedding on the boat.

It is the biggest tourist group to arrive from China since direct flights and maritime services began in December in a sign of rapidly improving ties between Taiwan and its neighbour, which claims sovereignty over the island.

The visitors are all Chinese workers for the American direct selling giant Amway, which says it plans to send eight more groups from the mainland.

Hundreds of people from the port authorities, Keelung city and Amway Taiwan were there to welcome the visitors, who were also treated to dragon and lion dances.

Most of the tourists aboard the ship have never visited the island before, Yan Zhirong, a senior official of the Amway Greater China, said in a statement.

"I've long wanted to visit Taiwan after visiting many countries. I'm very proud to be here," an excited man told a local television station on a trip to Taipei's National Palace Museum .

The museum holds more than 655,000 Chinese artifacts spanning 7,000 years, with the bulk of them taken from the Forbidden City by the Nationalist Kuomintang as they fled the Chinese mainland for Taiwan at the end of the civil war.

Local media here say the total number of Amway visitors could total 12,000 and that they were expected to generate more than 600 million Taiwan dollars (17.44 million US) in revenue for the island.

President Ma Ying-jeou's China-friendly administration signed agreements with Beijing last June to launch regular direct flights and treble the number of Chinese allowed to visit Taiwan to 3,000 daily.

Since then, arrivals have averaged only a few hundred each day, triggering opposition warnings that Ma's administration should not rely too heavily on China for Taiwan's economic stability.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1949, but Beijing considers the island a part of Chinese territory and is determined to get it back - by force if necessary.