The lst China-New Zealand Mayoral Forum Opens in Xiamen

In order to follow up Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to New Zealand in 2014， the CPAFFC and the New Zealand Local Government Association held the first China-New Zealand Mayoral Forum with the theme of“innovation and development”in Xiamen on September 7， 2015.

Chinese People's Political Con-sultative Conference (CPPCC) Vice Chairman Ma Peihua attended the opening ceremony and met with the various mayors. CPAFFC President Li Xiaolin， Vice President Xie Yuan， New Zealand Ambassador John McKin-non， New Zealand Consul General in Guangzhou Rebecca Needham， New Zealand Local Govemment Association Chairman Lawrence Yule， and 25 city leaders from both China and New Zea-land were present.

The mayors represented such cit-ies as Xiamen， Ningbo， Qingdao， Wu-han， Guangzhou， Shenzhen， Yichang，Lijiang， Weinan， Zhangye， Lanzhou，Guiyang， Komsomolsk， Hastings (of which Mr. Yule is mayor)， Welling-ton， Auckland， Christchurch， Dunedin，Tauranga， Palmerston North， Timaru，Gisbome， Wanganui， Taupo and Mata-mata-Piako.

Events such as Tasting of Chinese and New Zealand Food， the Picture Exhibition of Cities in China and New Zealand， and the Seashine Group’s“New Zealand Counter”opening cer-emony were held.

Forum held when China-New Zealand relations are developing well， attracting much attention in both countries.

Since the establishment of diplo-matic relations in 1972， China and New Zealand have seen historic progress in their relationship， with concrete coop-eration and exchanges in various fields being expanded and deepened in an un-precedented way.

In November 2014， during his visit to New Zealand， President Xi and Prime Minister John Keys witnessed the official launch of the China-New Zealand Mayoral Exchange and Coop-eration Mechanism. The Xi visit also raised China-New Zealand relations to a comprehensive and strategic partner-ship.

The lst China-New Zealand May-oral Forum， as a concrete form of may-oral exchange and cooperation mecha-nism， received much attention from both the central and local govemments of both sides. Among the 13 Chinese cities attending the forum， six at vice-provincial level-Xiamen， Ningbo，Qingdao， Wuhan， Guangzhou and Shenzhen-sent their mayors to the fo-rum.

New Zealand has 11 large regions，five single regions and 67 regional executive institutions. The country doesn’t have provinces. The 12 mayors attending this Forum included those from the seven most important cities:Wellington， Auckland， Christchurch， Dunedin， Tauranga， Palmerston North and Timaru. Among them， the mayor of Clrristchurch， Ms. Lianne Dalziel， hadused up her travel quota for a China visit early this year， but she still attend-ed this Forum at her own expense.

When he met with mayors from the two countries， Vice Chairman Ma said New Zealand was the first devel-oped country in the West to join the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank as a potential founding member in Janu-ary this year， indicating the importance New Zealand attaches to its relation-ship with China.

New Zealand is considerably de-veloped in terms of humanism， educa-tion， tourism， animal husbandry and agricultural technologies， creating im-portant opportunities for advancement.China is now deepening its reform comprehensively and New Zealand was focusing its efforts on sustainable development. The two countries shared strategic concerns and had broader space for cooperation.

Ms. Li， president of the CPAFFC，told the opening ceremony the success-ful launch of the China-New Zealand Mayoral Exchange and CooperationMechanism resulted from the deepen-ing bilateral relationship.“At present，”she said，“there is great potential for cooperation m various fields.”

She noted that President Xi praised the launch of the China-New Zealand Mayoral Exchange and Coop-eration Mechanism as a timely move.The CPAFFC would endeavor to pro-mote the implementation of the mecha-nism， making it a long-tenn platform for exchanges and cooperation between mayors of the two countries.

Ambassador John McKinnon said the goals set by President Xi and Prime Minister John Keys in their meeting in 2014 for bilateral trade to rise to US$30 billion by 2020 was of great signifi-cance. Equally important was the move to upgrade the free trade agreement be-tween the two countries， he said.

The Forum is practicalin theme-setting and rich in form and results.It has built a high-level platform for exchanges and cooperation between local governments

(1) The themes designed for the Forum were exactly what the mayors wanted to talk about.

By the end of March 2015， the number of Chinese tourists to New Zealand had increased by 24% com-pared with the previous year. The number of Chinese students study-ing in New Zealand also increased by 12%. China’s direct trade investmentin New Zealand increased remarkably to reach US$5.38 billion by the end of 2014.

At the same time， China is the 12th largest country to receive direct in-vestment from New Zealand， with the amount reaching 7.3 million US dol- lars. Considering the hot topics in Chi-na-New Zealand relationship， the first Forum chose“innovation and develop-ment”as the theme and invited mayors from the two countries to discuss issues in tourism， education and primary-level industries.

The attending cities all preparedintroductory materials with a rich col- lection of photos， videos and texts about their cities as well as the results of exchange and cooperation. At the same time， they put forward questions and valuable suggestions， giving ideas for future cooperation between local governments.

Chairman Yule said tourism， edu-cation and primary industries were all highly attractive for public attention.The mayors from New Zealand in at-tendance all expected to share success-ful experiences and improve coopera-tion through communication with their Chinese counterparts.

As the mayor of Hastings， he told the forum how his city used its clean environment to successfully develop a food processing industry and said that Hastings was cooperating with Qin-gdao in using the local high-quality water to produce formula milk pow-der. He also mentioned other projects involved.

Xiamen Mayor Pei Jinjia intro-duced the unique favorable conditionsXiamen had for developing tourism，which， he said， were due to the city’s export-oriented economy， close inter-action with the outside world and fre-quent international exchanges. Guang-zhou Mayor Chen Jianhua said that Guangzhou would improve cooperation with New Zealand in tourism by opti-mizing the exit and entry procedures，increasing direct flights and chartered tourist fiights and improving the coop-eration mechanism in the tourist indus-try.

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull noted in his education-themed speech that more and more schools in New Zealand had opened Chinese classes. The New Zealand Government had realized the importance of Chinese and had invest-ed in language teaching in order to help young students learn Chinese better.

The vice mayor of Lanzhou men-tioned in his primary industry-themed speech his hopes to deepen cooperation with New Zealand partners in deep pro-cessing of farm and anunal products. In the future， he said， Lanzhou would build a high-tech“central industrial park for processing agricultural and animal products”by importing new breeds of beef cattle and cows from New Zealand and inviting famous New Zealand enterprises with advanced technologies and standardized manage-ment systems for cooperation.

(2) The Forum was new in form with a wide variety of activities --from sights to tastes--that provided a rich experience of Chinese and New Zealand cultures.

In order to enrich the form of the Forum， Tasting of Chinese and New Zealand Food and the Photo Exhibition of Cities in China and New Zealand were held， which enabled the partici-pants to have a better understanding of their countries’culture.

At the food tasting platform， beer from Qingdao， lotus roots from Wu-han， ice wine， dates and apples from Zhangye， rose pies from Lijiang and wine， sherry， kiwi fruits， cheese bis-cuits， fruit soda and other fresh and delicious food with local features from New Zealand added much flavor to the Forum.

At the photo exhibition， every city attending the forum showed at least one picture of landscapes or people-to-people exchanges. The night scenes of brilliantly lit Chinese cities and pho-tos reflecting China's rapid develop-ment won hearty praises from the New Zealand’s participants. The wonderful natural sceneries in New Zealand and its traditional and unique Maori culture also impressed all.

(3) Participants fully exchanged ideas and signed the Xiamen Decla-ration to make the Forum a complete success.

The one-day Forum saw complete exchanges among the participants. At the closing ceremony， the mayor of Xiamen announced the Xiamen Dec-laration signed by all the attending cities. It stated:“We agree that local govemments’exchanges are an impor-tant part of bilateral relationship. Our cooperation， based on consensus， has economic development at the core and benefits to the two peoples as the goal. Our conunon suggestion is that the two sides， under the framework of China-New Zealand Mayoral Exchange and Cooperation Mechanism， should fur-ther deepen mutual trust， constantly en-hance the exchanges in various fields，endeavor to promote the unplementa-tion of concrete cooperation projects and realize information sharing so as todeepen China-New Zealand exchanges.

“Our common proposal is to hold China-New Zealand Mayoral Forum in the two countries in tum to summa-rize the cooperation results between the local governments and give new sug-gestions to deepen the mutual coopera-tion.”

At the closing ceremony， the host announced that the 2nd China-New Zea-land Mayoral Forum would be held in Wellington in 2017.

During intervals in the Forum，the mayors of sister cities including Ningbo Auckland; Guangzhou Auckland， Christchurch; Guiyang Palmerston North and other pairs talk-ed with each other and reached con-sensus on topics that interested them. In particular， Guangzhou Mayor Chen Jianhua met with Auckland Mayor Len Brown and discussed with him the es-tablishment of Guangzhou-Auckland-Los Angeles economic alliance and the cooperation between the two cities in the fields ofinnovation， technology and education.

Chen also talked about the in-crease of direct flights with Christ-church Mayor Lianne Dalziel. After the Forum， Mr. Grant Smith， mayor of Palmerston North， visited the sister city Guiyang. He visited many local schools and the two sides had deep-going discussions on how to promote education cooperation. After more than three decades of cooperation， Guiyang University and Massey University signed a new round of Memorandum of Friendly Cooperation during the visit.