| Speech at the Christmas and New Year Reception in the Economic and Commercial Counselor’s Office of the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand |
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| Thursday,December 07,2006 Posted: 11:00 BJT(0300 GMT) commercial office of Chinese Embassy |
Honorable Pensy Huang, Member of Parliament,
Deputy Secretary Mr. McKinnon and Mr. Leask,
Friends from the Diplomatic Corp.,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me much honor and pleasure to welcome you to this Christmas and New Year reception. On behalf of my wife and my colleagues, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to all of you present and those who are not able to come today, for supporting and personally contributing to the strong and booming economic and trade relationship between China and New Zealand.
In recent years, economic and trade relation has served as a pillar bolstering the bilateral relationship. All the three number ones New Zealand has achieved in her country-to-country relationship with China are actually achieved in the economic and trade area. Our two countries have different comparative advantages and are complimentary in trade and investment. This naturally brings about mutual benefits and win-win outcomes. With the direct attention and facilitation from our state leaders and governments, so far, 9 rounds of FTA negotiation have been held. I am fully optimistic that our negotiators will deliver on time the outcome our state leaders wish to see, and New Zealand will achieve the “Fourth number one” in her relation with China—being the first developed country to conclude free trade agreement with China.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in five days’ time, China will celebrate its 5th anniversary of its accession to the WTO. During the near five years’ time, China has imported US$2.4 trillion worth of products. The investment returns foreign investors have remitted out of China is around US$58 billion. China’s sustainable and robust economic growth and its surging domestic demand are providing enormous business opportunities to the rest of the world, including New Zealand. After the conclusion of FTA negotiation between our two countries, New Zealand business people will be much better positioned to take advantage of China’s economic development and market potentials. Looking beyond, I firmly believe that our economic and trade relations will have a brighter future, and a much wider and deeper integration process of our two economies will be witnessed in the years to come.
In closing, I would like to wish all of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And I would also like to propose a toast, to the friendship between China and New Zealand, to the deeper and closer economic and trade relations between our two countries.
Cheers!
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