China's ambassador to New Zealand Wu Xi says the coronavirus travel ban has already impacted relations between New Zealand and China.
Early February saw the New Zealand Government announce it would block travellers who had been through mainland China to try and prevent coronavirus from entering the country.
At the time, Wu warned it would have an impact on trade, tourism and education between the two nations. She emphasised that any ban on travel or trade because of the virus would go against recommendations made by the World Health Organization.
The ambassador has today reiterated those sentiments, with the travel ban extended on February 15 for a further eight days.
Wu told media that the ban had already had an impact.
"We have already seen an impact on our bilateral cooporation," Wu said.
"The impact on international education, the students are not coming back for some time because of the travel limit, and we have already seen an impact on our bilateral trade and according to the press reports that people have to return those lobsters to the sea," she said.
Wu said any ban goes against recommendations made by WHO.
"In my view the recommendations made by WHO is there and it is clear cut and has been reiterated time and again," she said.
"On the one hand we need to make proper arrangements for the prevention and the control of the epidemic and on the other hand we need to assess how big the risk is in order to have a balanced policy, in order to minimise impact on people to people exchanges and on our trade."
She said the epidemic is generally under control.
"The newly confirmed cases has been declining for a consecutive 13 days," said Wu.
The total number of cases worldwide has reached over 71,000, with 1775 deaths.
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