Sir Kenneth Stevens ,

Mr. David Catty,

Mr. John Bedkober

Mr. Li Faquan,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning, everyone!

I'd like to begin by extending a warm welcome to Jilin Provincial government and enterprises delegation led by Mr. Li Faquan, vice governor and senior economic advisor of Jilin Province. I'd also like to thank the New Zealand China Trade Association for the support to the visit of the delegation and hosting of this meeting.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and New Zealand in 1972, New Zealand has always been taking the lead in developing friendly relations with China among developed countries. Since the China New Zealand FTA came into force in October, 2008, our bilateral trade has developed rapidly, the economic and trade environment has been greatly improved. Although affected by the international financial crisis, our bilateral trade growth has been keeping good momentum . According to the New Zealand statistics, bilateral trade volume reached 6.394 billion New Zealand dollars in the first 7 months of this year, with a year-on-year increase of 12.7%. China has become New Zealand's second largest trade partner, second largest export market and second largest source of imports. In June this year, during his visit to New Zealand, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping mentioned that, China and New Zealand should explore the cooperation potentials, expand cooperation areas, enrich cooperation contents and push forward bilateral economic and trade cooperation to new high.

The visit by vice governor Li Faquan with the Jilin Provincial government and enterprises delegation is to increase the economic and trade exchanges and investment cooperation between Jilin and New Zealand and help Jilin enterprises to explore business opportunities. I hope the meeting on economic and trade exchanges between the two sides will further promote mutual understandings, establish broad business connections and expand economic and trade cooperation between Jilin and New Zealand.

I sincerely wish the meeting a complete success! Thank you.