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Believing in Great Development Potential
New Zealand was rich in natural environment and has comparative advantages in agriculture, forestry and farming. It is advanced in agricultural technology, agricultural products and food processing, biotechnology and environment protection technology etc. Meanwhile, tourism, education and transportation and communication grew up quickly.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and New Zealand in 1972, the bilateral trade and economic relations developed with stability and health. Among developed nations, New Zealand was the first to reach agreement with our nation on China's accession to WTO, two governments signed " Framework on Trade and Economic Cooperation Between China and New Zealand", announcing that the two countries would joint together to implement feasibility study report on FTA and start negotiations as soon as possible. At present, the feasibility study report on FTA was completed and negotiation would be launched. FTA would pave the way for deepening and expanding China-New Zealand trade and economic cooperation.
In recent years, goods trade between the two nations increased at a high rate. China has become the fourth biggest trading partner. According to Customs statistics, bilateral trade in 2003 amounted to US$1.83 billion, up by 31% compared with the same period of the previous year. Of which exports were US$800 million and imports US$103 million. In the first 9 months, China-New Zealand bilateral trade maintained high-speed growth and 40.4% higher than same time last year, amounting to US$1.86 billion. By commodities structure, China's main exports to New Zealand were garments, textile, footwear, plastic products and toys and other light industrial products, and main imports of China from New Zealand were raw material, dairy products, forest products, wool and meat. On the other hand, cross investment between China and New Zealand were also surging. By the end of 2003, China totally approved 819 New Zealand investment projects with a value of US$405 million. China-New Zealand service trade has huge potential and bilateral trade value in education, tourism, transportation and relative service trade was predicted to exceed US$1 billion.
The negotiation and signature of China-New Zealand FTA would provide an opportunity for business community of both sides to realize double-win and to promote mutual development. The two nations had huge potential and broad development prosperity in both tangible trade, service trade and cross investment.
(Information by Network Center of MOFCOM)
(News source: English Website of Ministery of Commerce)
