1. New Zealand became ASEAN's Dialogue Partner in 1975. New Zealand, along with Australia and Japan, were among the first Dialogue Partners to hold Summits with ASEAN in 1977.

2. ASEAN-New Zealand relations have strengthened by building upon areas of mutual interest and comparative advantages of both sides. The dialogue partnership between ASEAN and New Zealand has contributed to the building of mutual trust and respect, good neighborliness and interdependence and mutual benefits.

3. An ASEAN-Australia and New Zealand Commemorative Summit was convened in November 2004 in Vientiane to commemorate the 30th anniversary of ASEAN-Australia and ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue relations.

4. Six years after its very first Summit, which was held jointly with Australia, ASEAN and New Zealand convened the ASEAN-New Zealand Commemorative Summit to mark the 35th anniversary of ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue relations back-to-back with the 17th ASEAN Summit in Ha Noi in October 2010.

B. Political-Security Cooperation

5. New Zealand participates in a series of consultative meetings with ASEAN, which include the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN-Closer Economic Region (CER), the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+) , the Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) 10 Session with New Zealand, the ASEAN-New Zealand Dialogue and the meetings of the ASEAN-New Zealand Joint Management Committee, which offer opportunities for both ASEAN and New Zealand to review contemporary political-security, economic and development cooperation issues of mutual interest to both sides.

6. ASEAN and New Zealand maintain good political-security cooperation. New Zealand showed its commitment to regional peace and security and to ASEAN when it acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) on 28 July 2005 in Vientiane.

7. In combating international terrorism, the two sides signed the ASEAN-New Zealand Joint Declaration to Combat International Terrorism on 29 July 2005 in Vientiane. ASEAN and New Zealand also agreed on a work programme to implement the Declaration.

8. ASEAN-New Zealand partnership reached a significant milestone with the adoption of the ASEAN-New Zealand Joint Declaration on Comprehensive Partnership for 2010-2015 and the Plan of Action to Implement the Joint Declaration at the PMC +1 Session with New Zealand on 22 July 2010 in Ha Noi. The Joint Declaration aims to broaden and deepen the ASEAN-New Zealand partnership in political and security, economic, and socio-cultural cooperation that is pro-active and responsive to future developments.

9. New Zealand has also been actively involved in the East Asia Summit (EAS), which was initiated by ASEAN.

C. Economic Cooperation

10. The preliminary total trade between ASEAN and New Zealand in 2010 was $6.75 billion, an increase from US$ 5.3 billion in 2009. On foreign direct investment (FDI), the inflow from New Zealand to ASEAN Member States was US$ 239 million in 2009, accounting for 0.6% of total FDI in the region. More ASEAN-New Zealand trade and investment statistics can be accessed through http://www.asean.org/22122.htm.

11. The Leaders of ASEAN and New Zealand at the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Commemorative Summit on 30 November 2004 agreed to further enhance the ASEAN-Australia and New Zealand economic partnerships by launching negotiations on an ASEAN-Australian and New Zealand Free Trade Area (FTA). As a follow-up, an ASEAN-Australia and New Zealand Trade Negotiating Committee (AANZTNC) was established by Senior Economic Officials Meeting-Closer Economic Relations (SEOM-CER) Consultations to undertake negotiations on the AANZFTA.

12. On 27 February 2009 in Cha-am/Hua Hin, Thailand, the Economic Ministers from ASEAN and CER (Australia and New Zealand) signed the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA Agreement). The AANZFTA Agreement is the first region-to-region free trade agreement for both ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand. It is also the ASEAN's fourth free trade agreement with dialogue partners (after China, the Republic of Korea and Japan) and it is the first that Australia and New Zealand have jointly negotiated with other countries.

13. The AANZFTA Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2010 and is now being implemented by all Parties, except Indonesia. Under the AANZFTA, tariff reductions started gradually on 1 January 2010 with free trade to be fully realised by 2015. The newer ASEAN Member States – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam – have longer time frames.

14. Through the AANZFTA Agreement, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand effectively create a free trade area of over 600 million people with a combined GDP of US$ 2.7 trillion. Intra-regional (ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand) trade has been growing at an average of about 16% per annum since the start of the FTA negotiations in 2005. With the liberalisation of barriers to trade and investment under the AANZFTA Agreement, there will be further growth and expansion of intra-regional trade and investment. Taken together, Australia and New Zealand comprise ASEAN's sixth largest trading partner. ASEAN as a group is the second and the third largest trading partner of Australia and New Zealand, respectively.

D. Development Cooperation

15. The Leaders at the ASEAN-Australia and New Zealand Commemorative Summit in 2004 agreed to strengthen cooperation in human resources development through further promoting education sector linkages as well as in preventing and combating the spread of communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, avian flu and AH1N1.

16. ASEAN and New Zealand adopted two important documents namely the Joint Declaration for ASEAN-New Zealand Comprehensive Partnership and the Plan of Action to Implement the Joint Declaration for ASEAN-New Zealand Comprehensive partnership (2010-2015) at the ASEAN-New Zealand Commemorative Summit in 2010.

17. The Plan of Action maps out detailed steps and measures to implement the ASEAN-New Zealand Joint Declaration on ASEAN-New Zealand Comprehensive Partnership. The Plan of Action also serves as the master plan to broaden and deepen ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue relations in a mutually beneficial manner with the view of strengthening the comprehensive partnership for regional peace, prosperity and development.

18. ASEAN welcomes New Zealand's announcement of four flagship initiatives within the framework of the Plan of Action to assist ASEAN namely the ASEAN-New Zealand Scholarships Programme, Young Business Leaders Exchange Programme, initiatives on Disaster Risk Management and Agricultural Diplomacy.

19. The New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID) plays a key role in providing technical and capacity building assistance to ASEAN including through the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI). Among others, cooperation is proposed in the areas of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), customs, small and medium enterprises (SME) development, metrology and standards.

20. The total tourist arrivals in ASEAN from New Zealand during the period of 2007-2009 were 883,000.