Peking University, Beijing, April 17th, 2009: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, accompanied by Pansy Wong, Minister of New Zealand Ministry of Minority Affairs, Ministry of Women's Affairs, Tony Browne, New Zealand Ambassador to China, as well as other representatives from colleges and universities in New Zealand, visited Peking University and delivered an important speech in Yingjie Exchange Center on the afternoon of April 15th. Zhang Limin, Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand, representatives of China's Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Science and Technology, Natioanal Hanban, China Scholarship Council, Service Center for Study Abroad, Degree and Graduate Education Development Center, International Education Exchange Association, as well as some representatives of colleges and universities in PKU presented in the lecture. Zhou Qifeng, President of PKU and more than 200 faculty and students attended the lecture, presided by Professor Lin Jianhua, executive vice president.

Prime Minister John Key delivered a speech entitled "New Zealand and China: our shared future of the economy." Based on rich experience in finance, he thought that we should not overreact in response to the current global financial crisis and should be confident to believe that the global banking liquidity crisis have stabilized, although there are changes in the environment at any time. He emphasized on China’s considerable development prospects in politics, economy and culture, which was permitted by its solid strength of economy in the financial crisis, and continuing good relations between New Zealand and China to meet the challenges and share economic future.

In addition to strengthening economic cooperation to seek common development, John also showed that the cooperation between the two countries has bright prospects based on extensive and intimate friendship between people of them, and the cooperation should make its own contribution to development of friendship between people in the Asia-Pacific region and other countries.

After the speech, the premier answered a series of questions from PKU students on politics, economy and culture, and he had a very good interaction with the students.

Edited By: Seren
Translated By: Chen Zhenxia

Source: PKU News (Chinese)