Hon Gerry Brownlee

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Rt Hon Boris Johnson

Foreign Secretary

25 July 2017

Joint statement by UK and NZ foreign ministers

The United Kingdom and New Zealand have a long-standing, deep and close relationship.

It is founded on shared history, stemming from a Treaty relationship between Māori and the British Crown, our experiences in supporting each other in peace and war, and on extensive family links.

Our two countries enjoy and promote shared values – open, liberal markets, peace and security, human rights, democracy and respect for international norms. Our armed forces serve in Afghanistan, Iraq and South Sudan.

As island nations, we are both strong advocates for free trade, are important trading partners and have committed to laying the foundations for a UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement once the UK leaves the EU. We both love sport.

We now want to redouble efforts to broaden and deepen our friendship.

We are delighted to announce the launch of a People-to-People Dialogue, complementing the work of the UK-New Zealand Strategic Dialogue and the Trade Policy Dialogue.

This will enable us to identify opportunities to strengthen existing links, create new ones and broaden cooperation between our two governments across a range of policy issues.

The latter will include collaboration on our shared interests in social investment and a data-driven approach to support policy development, an intent cemented by the exchange of letters between our two Prime Ministers today.

The dialogue will also allow both governments to consider issues around two-way people flows, including secondments, exchanges, immigration and visas.

ends

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