Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger from New Zealand stands in front of a wall of patents at BYD’s headquarters in Pingshan District on June 11. Photos by Zhao Xiaochen

When Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger from New Zealand first visited Shenzhen in 2024, he was so impressed by the BYD minibuses that he personally snapped photos of them. “We need some of those in our city,” he told Shenzhen Daily at the time. Two years later, Mauger is back and he is looking for more than just photos.

Mauger returned to China’s southern tech hub this week to sign an upgraded sister-city agreement, elevating the relationship from a “friendly exchange” established in 2015 to a formal, high-level sister-city partnership. 

Beyond the official signing on June 10, Mauger spent two days touring Shenzhen’s tech companies and green infrastructure, including the Honghu Water Purification Plant in Luohu District and the Nanshan Energy Ecological Park.

An employee introduces BYD’s products to Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger (2nd L).

The Christchurch delegation members pose for a photo at BYD’s headquarters in Pingshan District on June 11.

On June 11 morning, he visited BYD’s headquarters in Pingshan District. He test-drove the electric vehicle maker’s luxury EV sports-utility vehicle model Yangwang U8 and and experienced the high-performance acceleration of the U9 luxury sports car. When asked about the BYD minibuses he admired in 2024, Mauger said, “I’m on it.”

The original friendly exchange agreement, signed in April 2015, focused on mutual understanding and cultural visits. The new sister-city status, signed in Shenzhen, upgrades that relationship to a formal partnership. Mauger explained the difference. “It was just a sort of friendly city relationship,” he said. “But now it’’s proper sister-city relationship — which brings it up to the next level.”

That next level, he said, includes student exchanges, technology sharing and streamlined coordination on infrastructure projects. “It’s going to be a lot easier to coordinate things,” Mauger said. He identified two areas for potential collaboration: waste-to-energy solutions and trackless trams, a technology he also observed during an earlier stop in Qingdao, Shandong Province.

For now, the mayor left with a realistic assessment of where Christchurch stands. “We have not caught up enough,” he said. “But it is so good to come over here to see what you can do.”