As Premier Li Keqiang wrapped up his official visit to New Zealand, Prime Minister Bill English wrote his third post, “A review of Premier Li Keqiang’s visit”, on his WeChat account, “NZPMBillEnglish”.

A week ago, on the day Premier Li arrived in New Zealand, English opened the account and then released two posts, as a welcome to his Chinese counterpart.

This time, in the video story, he recalled moments that impressed him the most, such as Premier Li’s spontaneous speech, and fruitful cooperation between the two countries.

“It is undoubtedly that the bilateral ties will continue to strengthen, and both countries will benefit from it,” the New Zealand PM said.

The video’s transcript reads as follows:

“Last week we had the most important offshore visit this year from Premier Li of China, a big part of New Zealand’s economic future.

“I was glad to see him do something that I haven’t seen any Chinese leaders do before, he gave a spontaneous speech at the lunch in Auckland when he was presented with the No 10 All Blacks jersey and I explained to him the No 10 is the playmaker. He was also really touched by seeing young Kiwis up on the stage speaking Mandarin and fluently. And he told me their accents were better than his. So that was pretty impressive.

“And we also got the formal gains of the agreements start negotiation for upgrading a very successful free trade agreement. And, as with other relationships, specific agreements that can fit one industry or a region, in this case, chilled meat into China and agreements about how to deal with the onion trade.

“So, all in all, a very successful visit, but Premier Li got some real insight into New Zealand and commented on the warmth of his welcome. I think that even though they are pretty formal in the way they do business, they enjoyed the Kiwi relaxed, informal atmosphere and I think it brought out the best for them.”