Taiwan and China will cooperate to recycle the soaring volume of electronic waste in China, an official with the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Saturday. China's program to promote sales of 'home appliances in the countryside' is expected to trigger a buying spree of electronic gadgets to replace older items around the country, which will lead to increasing demand to recycle the discarded appliances, said Chu Hsin-hua, head of the IDB's Sustainable Development Division. The IDB estimated that the Chinese market for electronic waste recycling services will expand to between NT$400 billion and NT$500 billion (US$15.8 billion) a year, about 10 times the size of Taiwan's market and one that's big enough to be worth fighting for, Chu said. According to the IDB, Taiwan's electronics manufacturing sector is good at handling e-waste, and China sought technical assistance from Taiwan in recycling its increasing waste more than once last year. Prompted by the demand, the two sides are expected to open a workshop in May to provide interested businesses with information on possible cooperation in the fields of e-waste recycling and pollution control on electronics production lines, the IDB said. 