World Bulletin / News Desk

 British Prime Minister Theresa May has met with her New Zealand counterpart Bill English at Downing Street on Friday.

The couple have appreared in front of the cameras after having a working lunch. Brexit, in particular striking a high quality trade deal between the two countries as the UK leaves the EU, has dominated the discussions between the two parties.

"While the UK remains in the EU we will work together to support an EU-New Zealand trade deal,” Theresa May said in the press briefing and added;

“In the longer term, we agree on the potential for a bold, new UK-New Zealand free trade agreement, and I look forward to starting early discussions on this in due course.”

Agreeing with May and reaffirming New Zealand’s commitment to work with the UK PM, English has said:

“We would hope that we could negotiate as soon as possible after the exit is completed. If the UK wants to demonstrate that they can negotiate a high quality trade agreement then New Zealand is the ideal partner for that.”

During the conference the British premier has repeated her commitment to trigger article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, the formal mechanism for ending membership, before the end of March.

“Next week I will set out more on our objectives for those negotiations,” she added.

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