Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Fiji s leader Sitiveni Rabuka have been speaking after a meeting in Wellington.
Sitiveni Rabuka is on his first official trip to Aotearoa since being elected prime minister in December last year.
He was welcomed to the New Zealand parliament today, where he will also meet Cabinet members.
Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka meets New Zealand PM Chris Hipkins in Wellington. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins
At the start of the media briefing, Hipkins expressed thanks for the warm and open discussions with Rabuka.
"I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Fiji for their defence and emergency personnel assistance following Cyclone Gabrielle.
"We are connected by longstanding people-to-people, sporting, economic and cultural links, and through the Fijian communities who have made New Zealand their home."
"We are connected by the depth of our cooperation across a broad range of sectors including defence, policing, health, trade and industry, education, fisheries, climate change and disaster management to name a few.
"I know that New Zealand and Fiji alongside other Pacific Island forum leaders share an ambitious vision for the social, cultural and environmental economic resilience of the region where we are strong, prosperous and secure.
"We know we are stronger when we combine our efforts ans focus on Pacific regionism and the priorities of the Blue Pacific continents."
Watch a livestream of the media briefing here.
Rabuka talks Covid-19, Pacific stability
In response Rabuka acknowledged the traditional owners of the land and paid respect to elders past and present.
He said his visit was to discuss ways forward for both countries, following Covid-19.
"Exactly a month ago the WHO declared Covid-19 over as a global health emergency. Seven million deaths later, the global economy is still recovering," Rabuka said.
"The people's coalition government that I lead is serious about growing our economy and my engagement here reflects that."
He said the Fiji government was keen to work harder to boost its export capacity to New Zealand and pleased to see bilateral relations have continued to strengthen over the years.
He thanked the government for its financial support for climate change.
Responding to a journalist's question, Rabuka said the Pacific has always been a area of conflict in the past.
"We can only achieve stability and unity through diplomacy and good governance. That's where we tend to succumb to the temptation of who offers more. When we can collectively create our own stability, there is no need for us to be looking at who is offering better to us."
Concern over RSE workers
Hipkins said New Zealand valued RSE workers, however, he recognised it was a scheme that has to be of mutual benefit to both countries.
There was growing anxiety amongst some Pacific partners in the RSE scheme around loss of talent and skilled workers that they needed domestically as well.
If the scheme was to be of mutual benefit, the key would be open dialogue with countries that have those concerns so they can be addressed, Hipkins said.
Rabuka responded the headline in Fiji was that 20,000 workers were still waiting on openings to go and he wondered whether Fiji should be relooking at the whole thing rather than opening up New Zealand and Australian doors.
Combating Climate change
The government will be putting an extra $11.1 million towards combating climate change in Fiji.
The prime minister announced the funding after the bilateral meeting this morning.
During the meeting, Hipkins said the government had some very ambitious targets around greenhouse gas emission reductions.
Recent significant announcements on accelerating the country's decarbonisation included the NZ Steel deal.
"We are very focused on this. We want to make sure that we are doing our bit to reduce emissions and also support the Pacific nations to do their bit in terms of the fight against climate change as well."
Earlier, Hipkins said the meeting would be significant, and climate change was one area likely to be discussed.
The pair met in Papua New Guinea last month, and Hipkins said he was looking forward to another in-person conversation.
He said the relationship between the countries was important, as many Fijians lived in New Zealand, many New Zealanders travelled to Fji regularly, and there was also an important trading relationship.
Rabuka has met with the Fijian community in Auckland and Wellington. He is is due to depart the country on Thursday.