New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) is to invest
12 million U.S. dollars in China to boost trade and promote its
businesses.

Rod MacKenzie, group managing
director of North Asia with NZTE, said the investment would be used to
develop a New Zealand concept center in Shanghai.

The center would chiefly provide information on New Zealand, such as travel, fashion, food and lifestyles.

Meanwhile, New Zealand will open five new business offices in China in four years.

The project served as a strategic
plan for identifying key trade opportunities in China, especially
during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, said MacKenzie.

Locations of the five offices were
yet to be decided, but the NZTE said that it had researched markets and
trade opportunities in Wuhan, Dalian, Shenzhen, Qingdao and Chengdu.

New Zealand would seek new export
opportunities in China in fields such as food, beverage, wood and
agricultural technologies.

Bilateral trade topped 5.11 billion U.S. dollars in 2006, said MacKenzie.

New Zealand’s exports to China
include dairy products, eggs, honey, wood, wood pulp, and seafood while
imports from China are chiefly electronics, furniture, toys, steel
products and textiles.

Tony Browne, New Zealand Ambassador
to China, said the China-New Zealand Free Trade Zone Agreement was
under discussion with the 13th round of negotiations concluded and the
14th round to be held soon in Beijing.

But he was reluctant to comment on the details of the negotiations.

“It is a very detailed, very
complicated, very elaborate negotiation. It is a very difficult
negotiation because it is China’s first negotiation with a developed
country and it is the most important bilateral negotiation that New
Zealand is dealing with,” Browne said.

The NZTE, New Zealand’s national economic development agency, has a global network of 48 offices.