Chinese mainland and Taiwan officials overseeing cross-Straits policy are slated to meet on Tuesday, the highest-level meeting between the two sides since 1949.

Wang Yu-chi, head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), was set to fly to the mainland on Tuesday and have a two-hour meeting with Zhang Zhijun, chief of the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of the State Council, in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province.

The significance is no less than that of the "Wang-Ku Talks" in 1993, which was the first public meeting between figures from non-governmental organizations representing the two sides since 1949, Yang Lixian, a deputy secretary-general of the Beijing-based National Society of Taiwan Studies, told the Global Times.

The meeting indicates a deeper political trust between the mainland and Taiwan and will lay the foundation for political consultations and help institutionalize official exchanges, Jin Yi, a research fellow with the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Cross-Straits relations have boomed since Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang took office in 2008. Since then, the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Beijing-based Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) have met twice a year to facilitate dialogue, which resulted in the signing of a raft of deals on trade and people-to-people exchange.

Cross-Straits trade in 2013 stood at nearly $197.3 billion, with an increase of 16.7 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the General Administration of Customs. Personnel exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan reached a record high in 2013 at 8.08 million, according to the TAO figures.

On this basis, the mainland and Taiwan need to explore new sectors for development and seek deeper political relations, Jin said.

On the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Bali, Indonesia last year, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said the longstanding cross-Straits political disputes could be gradually and eventually resolved, and "we cannot hand those problems down from generation to generation."

In the meantime, meetings between ARATS and SEF can no longer satisfy the new needs arising from the development of cross-Straits relations and a direct dialogue between MAC and TAO chiefs is necessary to improve communication and understanding, Jin added.

Wang has previously said he would bring up issues including proposed liaison offices, bilateral efforts on regional economic integration and better healthcare for Taiwanese students studying on the mainland, according to AFP.

"There will certainly be some results following the meet, although it's uncertain in what form they will be made," Yang said.

While the meeting on Tuesday was highly anticipated to pave the way for a meeting between Xi and Ma, Jin said this would not necessarily lead to such a high-level meeting, which has been hampered by too many preconditions made by Taiwan, and after which people would expect an outcome.

Wang is scheduled to visit the Nanjing mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang, and head to Shanghai on Thursday to visit think tanks before wrapping up his trip to the mainland on Friday, the Taipei-based Central News Agency reported.