Hon. Mayor Phil Goff,

Hon. President of the National Party Peter Goodfellow, MP Dr Yang Jian,

Hon. MP of the Labour Party Raymond Huo,

Hon. Māori Party president Tame Iti,

Sir John Walker,

Ms. Jenny Zhang, President of Young Business Women in New Zealand Incorporated,

Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, Good Evening!

It is my pleasure and honor to be here tonight to be part of this wonderful event. First of all, I would like to thank Ms. Jenny Zhang for inviting me and my colleagues here tonight, for us to be able to meet so many friends old and new. I also would like to thank Sir John Walker and his team for their hard work to make this beautiful event possible, which I am confident will be of great help to the Community Swim Programs and to the kids learning swimming to keep fit.

‘Be happy in doing good’ has long been an important part of Chinese traditional culture. I am so pleased and proud to see more and more of my Chinese compatriots in New Zealand devoted to the local cause of public good. They have been doing what they can for the people who need , and also contributing to build the highly responsible and caring Chinese community, as well as the multicultural and united local society.

I am very pleased and proud to see so many young Chinese business women playing a more and more important role in New Zealand economic and social development. With hard work, and wisdom, overseas Chinese in New Zealand have taken roots and achieved great success here in New Zealand. They are also playing an important bridge role in promoting mutual understanding, friendship between our two peoples and economic and trade co-operations between China and New Zealand.

As we all know, the economic and trade cooperation is an important engine and ballast of the fast growing China New Zealand relations. China and New Zealand’s economy is highly complimentary with each other. As New Zealand’s largest trading partner, China has been New Zealand’s largest export market for four consecutive years and largest source of import for six consecutive years. In the context of the global economic downturn, the trade between China and New Zealand increased by 3.4% to 23 billion New Zealand Dollars in 2016. Both sides are working together to achieve the trade goal of 30 billion New Zealand Dollars by 2020. This goal was set by President Xi Jinping during his visit to New Zealand in 2014.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang paid a very successful visit to New Zealand in March this year which has undoubtedly generated a big push for our bilateral relationship. Leaders of our two countries reached many agreements and added NZ a number of ‘first’ in developing history of our bilateral relationship, such as on starting upgrade China-New Zealand FTA negotiations, establishing a cultural center in Auckland, etc. The cooperation agreement on ‘One Belt One Road’ is one of the most significant. New Zealand became the first western country to sign cooperation agreement on Belt and Road with China About two months later, the government of New Zealand sent a high level delegation to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation successfully hosted in Beijing. The major event attracted world wide attention, achieved a great deal of tangible results covering almost all areas, and provided new opportunities for further co-operation between China and New Zealand.

The fast growing cooperation between our two countries and peoples has yielded many fruitful results in such fields as aviation connectivity, infrastructure, financing, tourism, primary industry etc.

In general we are faced with tremendous opportunities in developing the cooperation and communication between our two countries. I am confident with our joint efforts of both sides the one belt and one road cooperation between our two countries will bear more and more fruitful results. It is my sincere hope that Young Chinese Business Women Incorporated in New Zealand will continue to play the important bridge role in this regard and it is my sincere hope our friends present here or not in New Zealand will continue to be the pioneers in exploring more opportunities in strengthening the ties of both countries and peoples. I am a strong believer a good and sound relationship between China and New Zealand is beneficial to both countries and both peoples and to Asia and pacific and the whole world.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our friends, present here or not, for your kind support and devotion to our strong and fruitful bilateral relations, and let us continue working together to promote our friendship and cooperation to a new height,

I wish tonight’s event a great success and all of you a lovely evening!

Thank you!