Zhou Lin was overjoyed when she heard that Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, welcomed a new consulate general last week. The move brought the number of foreign consulates in the city to 12.

"Friends whose children study in New Zealand keep telling me the island country is one of the best places in the world to live. I do want to go there," said the middle-aged college teacher who has traveled to Europe and America but never to the Southern Hemisphere.

"The new consulate will make it easier for Sichuan locals like me to apply for a visa in Chengdu," the travel enthusiast said.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key opened the New Zealand Consulate General in Chengdu during his first visit to Sichuan on Nov 12.

"New Zealand is among the first group of countries in the world to open a diplomatic post in Chengdu. This is a natural continuation of our expanding and increasingly close relationship with China," the prime minister said.

"China is now our largest export market as well as our largest source of imports. Our trade with China exceeded $20 billion in May this year, surpassing the target set for 2015. Earlier this year, President Xi Jinping and I agreed to set a new and more ambitious target of $30 billion by 2020," he said.

The new consulate, which will provide consular services in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality and Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, is New Zealand's fifth diplomatic mission in China. The other four are the embassy in Beijing and consulates general in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

"New Zealand's economic prosperity relies on selling our goods and services to the rest of the world, and having good relationships with other countries, so we are working hard to ensure we have the right level of resources in the right places to assist our exporters in the markets they are operating in," the prime minister said.

Chengdu, which was designated as Southwest China's center of commerce and trade by the central government, sees the region with 250 million people as a key market.

"By 2013, a total of 26 New Zealand firms had invested more than $63 million in Sichuan," said Sichuan governor Wei Hong during the opening ceremony of the New Zealand Consulate General in Chengdu.

huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/21/2014 page6)