Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will lead a trade delegation to China at the end of the month.
He will visit Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai.
Hipkins announced the trip at his regular post-Cabinet press conference today.
It will be the first prime ministerial visit to China since the pandemic.
"The relationship with China is one of New Zealand's most significant, wide-ranging and complex."
Exports to China were $21 billion in the year to December, he said, almost a quarter of New Zealand's total export earnings.
While dairy, meat and wood - traditional exports - were important, he said the trip was also about supporting emerging sectors like gaming and health and wellness.
"The make up of the [business] delegation that I'll be taking to China reflects that, as one of our key objectives is to diversify breadth of our export offering," Hipkins said.
The business delegation would also include representatives from tourism and education sectors, he said, as tourism from China was expected to increase.
"I will also separately be attending the NATO meeting in July in Lithuania... immediately prior to that I will be going to Brussels, where the focus will be on our free trade agreement with the European Union."
He said that agreement was expected to increase exports to the European Union by up to $1.8b each year and add $1.4b to New Zealand's GDP each year.
Asked how he would navigate raising human rights abuses or grievances, Hipkins said New Zealand had prided itself on being "stable and consistent" in its approach.
"That means that where we have human rights concerns we will raise them. Where we have concerns around trade or any other foreign policy issue, we will raise those.
"Our relationship with China has always been based on setting out, clearly, our position, and being consistent in our position, and we'll continue to do that."
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