New Zealand-China partnership forum could move to 2013 (2)

The New Zealand side of the forum would include "top exporters to China, people that have engaged with China at a variety of levels" and those involved in "investment, science, education, culture and Maori interests," said McKinnon, who was New Zealand's deputy prime minister from 1990 to 1996 and the country's longest- serving minister of foreign affairs and trade from 1990 to 1999.

"We will partner with a Chinese organization that has got linkages with the government and with a lot of the large businesses and SOEs," he said in a phone interview.

"Any corporate entity going into China has to get those relationships right. Our priority is to get that primary relationship and to get the imprimatur of the Chinese government."

The New Zealand China Council was formed in July as part of the government's "New Zealand Inc" strategy for expanding trade and other links with China.

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