Statistics

New Zealand exports $16.7 billion worth of goods to China (year to March 2020), over double that of our next biggest export market, Australia.

China is our largest source of imports, at nearly $13b (year to March 2020), followed by Australia, USA, Japan and Germany.

NZ supplies more than half of all dairy that China imports from the world.  New Zealand also supplies a significant amount of the wood, meat, fruit and wool that China imports.

Many of the goods that New Zealand imports are supplied primarily by China, such as clothing, toys and games, furniture and footwear.

There were 36,000 fee paying students from China studying in New Zealand in 2018.  This makes China the largest source of students, followed by India, Japan and Korea.

Foreign investment from China, including Hong Kong reached $11b (year to March 2019).  This is well below our largest investor, Australia (at $56.9b), and is relatively low considering the size of the trade relationship, people to people links and other connections.

Chinese tourist numbers have slowed slightly following a peak of 431,000 in January 2019.  China is still our second-largest source of inbound tourism, following Australia at over 600,000 visitor arrivals per year.

The number of secondary level students learning Chinese in New Zealand is growing slowly, but is still well below the number that study French, Japanese or Spanish.  There is a large drop-off in Chinese learners between primary and secondary levels.

There has been a big increase in the number of primary level students learning Chinese in New Zealand in recent years, with nearly 65,000 primary students currently studying Chinese.