New Zealand and Fiji cordial relationship is expected to reach greater heights, says New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters.

Mr Peters is leading a delegation of MPs for the visit to Fiji and the Pacific nations. The delegation arrived at the Nadi International Airport yesterday.

At the Raffles Gateway Hotel in Nadi, Mr Peters said New Zealand was committed to building deeper relationships with Fiji. Talks get underway in Suva today.

He said the talks were “to step up our relationship in terms of your culture and the economy security as well as ours. It is about to get a whole lot better, NZ’s relationship
with Fiji.

“This is 2019, the 21st Century.

Our purpose alongside the other like-minded democratic countries is to see our society and our people thrive.”

He said there would be some good programmes to advance the economic social welfare of the Pacific.

He added it depended on the way things developed in the Pacific.

“But what they do know in New Zealand is that the Fijian people have been there for centuries and centuries.

“It is their aspiration to be a nation state of their own self-control with their own sovereignty for centuries to come. In my country, we understand that.

“The more exchange we have about what good governance looks like and what democracy looks like