Murray McCully, New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister, met Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, on Tuesday on his daylong visit to the Kingdom to discuss means to bolster bilateral relations.

“Regional issues including Syria was high on the agenda during the meeting between them,” said Greg Lewis, deputy head of mission at the New Zealand Embassy in Riyadh.

“New Zealand is closely monitoring developments in Syria,” he added.

He said that McCully announced last week that New Zealand would provide an additional NZ$5 million to assist Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon.

During the meeting the two leaders discussed various aspects of the Syrian crisis in the efforts toward the restoration of peace in the country and also shared views to enhance ties between the Kingdom and New Zealand in various fields.

Apart from large delegation, Saudi ambassador to Australia and New Zealand Nabil Al-Saleh and New Zealand’s ambassador in Riyadh Hamish McMaster also attended the meeting.

McMaster said that food security and renewable energy as well as regional developments and other issues of mutual interest to the two countries topped the agenda during the visit.

“This visit will reaffirm the importance of New Zealand as a natural food security partner for Saudi Arabia. New Zealand requires products to receive government certification as totally halal-compliant, alongside the usual rigorous health and hygiene checks,” McMaster underlined.

He further stated that the visit “reaffirms New Zealand’s intention to develop strong and enduring political relationship with the region, expand regional trade and economic relationships and improve the country’s connectivity with the region.”

According to the embassy, the key goals of the arrangement is to build a strong political relationship with the GCC countries to ensure close affinity and cordial relationship between all of them.

McCully also met Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, deputy minister of foreign affairs, and Finance Minister Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz, an embassy official told Arab News.

Besides exchanging ideas on bolstering bilateral ties they also reviewed issues of mutual interest during the meeting in addition to the latest developments of the free trade agreement between GCC countries and New Zealand.

New Zealand has a strong trading relationship with Saudi Arabia, with over NZ$1.66 billion in bilateral trade in the year to June 2013.

“Further enhancing our two-way trade was at the top of agenda,” an embassy official said.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is the seventh largest export market for New Zealand with bilateral trade at $4.86 billion in the year to 2012 and their exports to the region continue to grow at a rate of over 10 percent per year.

McCully, accompanied by a delegation, is on a 10-day trip to the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, for the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.