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Chinese visitors from Rotorua-Nanjing Town welcomed
News Release
Thursday 16 May 2013
Chinese visitors from Rotorua-Nanjing Town welcomed to NZ’s Rotorua
Rotorua Deputy Mayor Trevor Maxwell (background, centre) hosts a powhiri to welcome visitors from China’s Nanjing-Rotorua Town.
Forty eight residents of China’s Rotorua-Nanjing township were welcomed to Rotorua yesterday [Wednesday 15 May] with an official powhiri at the Rotorua District Council (RDC) Civic Centre.
The welcome ceremony was hosted by Deputy Mayor Trevor Maxwell.
The Chinese visitors are the latest of several hundred residents of Nanjing’s satellite town to visit Rotorua in recent years. The new Chinese township bearing Rotorua’s name is in the Jiangling district of the provincial capital Nanjing, and has been planned to accommodate a community of around 5000 well-educated and relatively affluent residents in modern western style houses.
People purchasing a home in the new development receive a holiday in New Zealand’s original Rotorua as part of their purchase arrangements.
RDC Economic & Regulatory Services group manager Mark Rawson said the plan for the Nanjing satellite township development came after a group of Chinese business people visited Rotorua in 2005.
“The Chinese developers were impressed with Rotorua's natural environment and the way our residents access and use forests, lakes and geothermal areas with minimal impact. The design of a number of the Chinese town’s municipal buildings have subsequently been influenced by the look of buildings here in Rotorua, such as our council Civic Centre,” he said.
Rotorua District Council has a Friendship City relationship with Nanjing, a city of more than seven million people which has been singled out by the Chinese government for development as an economic and technology hub, with numerous industrial parks and education centres.
The eastern Chinese city is the capital of the Jiangsu province and is part of the Yangtze River Delta economic zone. Nanjing has long been an important national centre of education, research, transport networks and tourism.
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