BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Minister of Trade Phil Goff said here Friday that New Zealand hopes to become the first developed country to establish free trade area (FTA) with China.

    "I hope the negotiation on FTA agreement can be completed as early as possible," Goff told reporters at the New Zealand embassy to China on Friday evening.

    "Both sides are working to meet the deadline set by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to conclude our FTA negotiation before April 2008," Goff said.

    "A high quality FTA between our two countries would bring mutual benefit to both Chinese and New Zealand people," he noted.

    Leading the largest-ever delegation of business people from New Zealand, Goff flew to China on the inauguration of Air New Zealand direct flight from Auckland to Shanghai.

    He will meet with Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and Agricultural Minister Du Qinglin next Monday, discussing FTA negotiations.

    Goff said there are currently no obstacles in the negotiation, but they have difficulties in some fields such as manufactured goods.

    "But I believe these difficulties will finally be resolved through joint efforts from both sides," Goff said.

    New Zealand is the first developed country to start the FTA negotiation with China and the first western country to recognize China's full market economy status.

    Trade between China and New Zealand has been growing rapidly in recent years with bilateral trade reaching 2.68 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, 2.5 times more than in 2000.

    The two sides carried out extensive consultations and increased their consensus on the trade of products and services, investment, intellectual property rights, technical barriers and other issues.

    The tenth round of negotiations will be held in Beijing in January, 2007.