Last week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao headed a delegation to New Zealand, which was part of his South Pacific trip, to discuss trade and a potential free trade area between the two countries. Ahead of the visit, Beijing Review spoke with New Zealand Ambassador to China Tony Browne on his country’s trade relationship with China.
　　
　　Beijing Review: What are your thoughts on the ongoing development of Sino-New Zealand relations?
　　
　　Tony Browne: I think the relationship has developed in a very, very positive direction in recent years, with strong growth in trading relationship. We see development in educational relationship [between our two countries], with large numbers of Chinese students studying in New Zealand. We see development in tourism relations, with more and more Chinese visiting New Zealand, doing business and spending holidays. We see growth in investment. A lot of New Zealand companies come to invest in China and Chinese companies invest in New Zealand.
　　We also see continuation of a very close political relationship. The visit of Premier Wen Jiabao is just one more stage in the development of the very close working links that exist in the leadership of China and the leadership in New Zealand. In the last five years, let’s see who has visited New Zealand: Chinese President Hu Jintao has been to New Zealand, [Chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress] Wu Bangguo has been to New Zealand, Wen Jiabao is going to New Zealand, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong, Li Changchun and Wu Guanzheng have been to New Zealand in the last five years.
　　So, we have a very close relationship. This indicates the Chinese leadership sees their relations with New Zealand as very important in their point of view and the relationship with China is obviously of the highest importance for New Zealand.
　　In regional contact, too, New Zealand and China were very close together in a number of international situations. We are both members of APEC and both our prime ministers attended the first East Asian Summit.
　　There are other events in the relationship in the last five years that can indicate just how closely we see our relationship now. The first is the WTO. New Zealand is the first developed country to agree to terms for China’s accession to the WTO. We are also the first developed country to recognize China’s market economy status. We are the first developed country that began FTA [Free Trade Area] negotiations with China. These negotiations are hugely important for New Zealand’s economic future as well as being a measure of a wider determination on both parts to work closely in finding new ways to bring the two countries together. FTA negotiation is, after WTO negotiation itself, the most important negotiation that our countries have ever been involved in.
　　
　　What sectors in our cooperative programs need strengthening?
　　
　　Well, we think we can always do better. We see big opportunities for New Zealand companies in China to make more use of their technology and products that New Zealand can offer. So, there is a lot of work that New Zealand has to do to promote ourselves and our products, expertise and our skills in China. I don’t see any major area that we have significant problems in our relationship. We have been working hard to ensure the direction of the relationship.
　　Our relationship is now moving in the right direction after some difficulties a few years ago. We saw more Chinese students traveling to New Zealand for study at the graduate and postgraduate level, even if the number of English language schools of secondary schools has dropped. That is not where the future of our relationship was going to lie. We should consider the quality of our universities that could provide education to Chinese students. The problems in education will be resolved and supply a better foundation.
　　
　　Premier Wen is the first Chinese Premier to visit New Zealand in the past 18 years. How do you view his visit?
　　
　　Yes, it is true that Premier Wen is the first Chinese premier to visit New Zealand in recent years. But let us remember that a few months before Zhu Rongji became Chinese premier, he went to New Zealand as a vice premier. And I have mentioned many, many senior visitors [to New Zealand]. We have been very pleased to welcome Premier Wen to New Zealand.
　　We want to see progress in our relationship; we want to see advances in important areas and signing of new agreements through discussion of our prime minister and Premier Wen, which can point out new directions of our relationship. We want to see continuation of the close political dialogue that we have. Of course, Premier Wen’s visit will confirm and strengthen that dialogue at the highest level.
　　We view our relationship as soundly based and working well. The direction of our relationship is moving positively. We want to make sure the very positive power continues.
　　What is your opinion of the prospect of establishing a free trade area between China and New Zealand?
　　I am very confident about the establishment of a FTA between our two countries. We had six rounds of formal negotiations. We started with negotiations of a trade and economic cooperation framework in 2004. Then we had a feasible study in this regard and moved on to the negotiations. We had six rounds of negotiations. They are not easy negotiations, they are very complex negotiations. So far, the negotiations are satisfying and progress have been made. We know there are still difficulties in our work that our negotiators have to resolve.
　　During the six rounds of negotiations, there is a very good, basic understanding between the negotiating teams and that is very important to any negotiation. They have achieved a lot during the negotiations.
　　What role will a free trade area play in further strengthening bilateral economic and trade cooperation between the two countries?
　　It will open new opportunities for New Zealand business in China and Chinese business in New Zealand. It will hopefully lead to growth in trade and opening up of new areas for trade, new opportunities of manufactured products and agricultural products for New Zealand to find markets in China. But FTA is much more than simply increasing trade volume. We want it to bring the two economies closely together.
　　New Zealand has recognized China’s status as a full market economy. What are your thoughts on China’s economic development?
　　The decision made in 2004 to recognize China’s market economy status was a recognition of the huge changes and huge development that had occurred in China’s economy. China’s fast economic development is moving China forward strongly to become a great world economy.
　　There are some difficulties in managing the Chinese economy. It also had a lot of political and economic management jobs to do to ensure the various periods of development are matched by suitable and appropriate policy adjustment, generally.
　　I think New Zealand is very confident about the direction of China’s growth. Otherwise, we would not recognize China’s market economy status and start negotiation with China on FTA. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such efforts made by our government to develop a relationship with China.
　　Is China’s development an opportunity or a threat to New Zealand?
　　We see it a great opportunity from China. We see that the growth in our trade and the two-way trade with China tripled in the last five years.
　　We also see new opportunities growing. We just had Fonterra, one of our largest companies and one of our largest traders in dairy products, invest over $100 million in a joint venture in Shijiazhuang, north China’s Hebei Province. It is an important investment. It is also a recent significant demonstration that in New Zealand, we see China as a great opportunity. Otherwise, our company would not have invested that money. That was the management of that period of time. In that respect, can we say New Zealand’s efficiency in the agricultural sector is posing a threat to the farming community of China? We don’t see it that way at all.
　　What we see is that the involvement of Fonterra as a partnership of China’s development of agriculture is very important. We don’t see the growth as being simply based on export. They see their growth as achieved by efforts of technology transfer through a cooperative program of investments overseas.
　　Let me give you another example. New Zealand is an important exporter of dairy products to Chile. Fonterra invested heavily in the dairy sector in Chile. What the investment has done is to improve the production of dairy products in Chile. It actually leads to a decrease in New Zealand’s exports and an increase of Chile’s export of dairy products.

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