New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is on a six-day visit to China with aims to diversify its trade reliance with the country.

Hipkins is scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing and also attend a World Economic Forum event in Tianjin.

Along with New Zealand’s PM, trade and tourism ministers are also visiting China, as well as executives from some of New Zealand’s largest firms, such as Air New Zealand and Fonterra Cooperative Group.

“The make-up of the delegation reflects our objective of diversifying the breadth of our export offering,” Hipkins said before he visited China. “The export of traditional goods like dairy, meat and wood to China remain important, but it’s critical we also throw our support behind emerging sectors such as gaming and health and wellness.

“There’s not much more bread and butter than trade for a country like New Zealand. We are a trading nation. Trade is a centrepiece of the trip.”

That said, the issue of human rights is undoubtedly forecast to arise, say reports. Before the trip, all eyes were on US President Joe Biden and his decision to label President Xi a dictator, the New Zealand Herald reports. Yet Hipkins stated he wouldn’t use this language. “I generally don’t think those labels are useful,” he affirmed.

Following the trade agreement in 2008, China’s economic importance to New Zealand began to increase, Bloomberg reports, overtaking Australia as the country’s largest trading partner in 2013.

In addition, Hipkins is aiming to boost China’s interest in New Zealand as a tourism and education destination. Tour operators are hoping Chinese visitor numbers will soon revert to pre-pandemic levels.

This will be Hipkins’ first meeting with Xi. New Zealand’s former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s last visit was at the APEC summit in 2022.

The last time a New Zealand Prime Minister visited China was back in 2019.