June 14, 2022
Visit marks 60 years of NZ-Samoa friendship
Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afe and New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern have held their first bilateral talks, with climate change top of the agenda.
But the leaders say today’s kōrero did not include China’s push into the Pacific.
The visit marks 60 years since Samoa gained independence from New Zealand with a Treaty of Friendship which was signed by Ms Mata’afe’s father, Fiame Mata’afa Faumuina Mulinu’u II, who was Samoa’s first prime minister.
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio says the visit of the new prime minister is being closely watched by Samoans here.
He says she made a brief call in to Māngere on Queen’s Birthday while enroute to Fiji, before coming back for this week’s formal official visit.
“Despite the rain in the morning about 2000 people marched the streets around the town centre to welcome her and it was just an amazing moment,” Mr Sio says.
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