On October 17, 2003, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, who is attending the 15th ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), met with his New Zealand counterpart Phil Goff in Bangkok.

To begin with, Li appreciated New Zealand for its preparation job done for President Hu's visit, saying that the visit is very important to enhance the two countries' relationship. He expressed confidence that the upcoming state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to New Zealand will achieve positive results with the efforts from both sides.

Li noted that China and New Zealand, endeavoring to establish full-range cooperative relations characterized by long-term stability, have witnessed frequent exchanges of high-level visits and wide-ranging cooperation in agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, geophysics, environment, meteorology, education and tourism. China treasures very much the fine bilateral relationship, and would work together with New Zealand to advance the early resumption of multilateral trade talks of the Doha Round within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Goff said that President Hu's visit is very important, and the government and people of New Zealand are eagerly awaiting President Hu's visit and that they are making further preparations to make the visit successful. The economies of China and New Zealand are highly complementary and there is great potential for economic and trade cooperation, said Goff, expressing the hope that the two sides would explore new areas of cooperation and work towards stronger and closer cooperation and exchanges. Goff congratulated China on the success of its first manned space flight.

The two sides also discussed the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and other issues of common concerns.