On June 5, Paige Kawana, Deputy Consul-General of the New Zealand Consulate-General in Guangzhou, visited Hainan, where she paid a courtesy visit to the province’s Foreign Affairs Office. Shang Jing, Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Affairs Office of Hainan Province, met to exchange in-depth views with Kawana on the subject of strengthening cooperation between Hainan and New Zealand. Officials from the Office of the Free Trade Port Working Committee of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee and Hainan Airlines were also in attendance.

Shang warmly welcomed Kawana to Hainan, and gave a brief introduction to the current development progress of the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP). Shang also stated that since the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and New Zealand in 2014, high-level visits between the two countries have been frequent, and the bilateral relationship has developed at a healthy, stable rate. Hainan hopes to strengthen friendly exchanges and pragmatic cooperation with New Zealand across several sectors, including green, low carbon development, economy and trade, tourism, education, and sister city relationships, and implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two nations. Shang also expressed hopes that the New Zealand Consulate-General in Guangzhou will make use of new media platforms to increase the promotion of Hainan in New Zealand, encourage New Zealand universities, companies, cultural and tourism institutions, and other entities to set up schools or invest in Hainan, and provide support and encouragement for New Zealand locals to travel to Hainan.

Hainan and New Zealand are both island economies surrounded by water, and have many other similarities, said Kawana. In recent years, remarkable cooperation results between the two places in traditional sectors such as person-to-person exchanges, higher education, economic and trade exchanges, and connectivity have been achieved, and excellent progress has also been made in non-traditional sectors such as innovation and creative projects. Kawana also spoke of the willingness of the New Zealand Consulate-General in Guangzhou to play the role of a bridge between the two, as well as expressing a commitment to expanding and deepening cooperation between Hainan and New Zealand.

The two sides discussed the latest development progress of the Hainan FTP, direct flights between the two places, and several other topics.

This was the first Hainan visit for Paige Kawana, who was appointed Deputy Consul-General of the New Zealand Consulate-General in Guangzhou in April, 2025.