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NZ official lauds FTA with China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-10 17:13

The Sino-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) is a comprehensive, high-quality pact that will greatly and rapidly encourage bilateral trade and investment, the New Zealand trade minister told reporters in Hangzhou on Thursday.

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Phil Goff said that the pact, covering sectors from food and beverages to education and tourism, will create many opportunities for both nations. Goff said this was the largest trade agreement for New Zealand since it signed the Closer Economic Agreement with Australia in 1983.

"The agreement will set examples for other countries," said Goff, who added that New Zealand was the first country to successfully conclude FTA negotiations with China.

The current tariffs on New Zealand exports to China will be phased out within 11 years, he said.

China is New Zealand's third-largest trading partner and fifth most profitable export market, with New Zealand exports to China seeing an almost 200 percent increase in the past two decades.

Goff noted that the economy of the booming Zhejiang province, where he spoke, was a "progressive and highly prosperous" region whose electronics and textile industries would benefit from the pact.

The FTA signing in the Great Hall of People in Beijing on Monday, which was called "the most significant development in the Sino-New Zealand relationship since the establishment of diplomatic ties," marked China's first such pact with a developed country, said Goff.

The wide-ranging agreement, coming after 15 rounds of negotiations over three years, was signed by Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming and Goff and witnessed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his New Zealand counterpart, Helen Clark.