India and New Zealand have resumed trade talks after a hiatus.
Joint Trade Committee talks were held between the two sides on June 24 in New Delhi, India.
Mark Sinclair, Deputy Secretary, Americas and Asia Group, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) led the New Zealand delegation.
India’s delegation was led by Rachna Shah, Additional Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
Joint Trade Committee talks were preceded by Foreign Ministry Consultations the previous day, where officials reiterated New Zealand and India’s commitment to “deepening bilateral ties and engagement across a range of areas including trade and investment, defence and security and people-to-people ties.”
A similar diplomatic ritual played out a little over a year ago when the two countries held Foreign Office Consultations virtually, with Mark Sinclair leading the New Zealand side and Riva Ganguly Das, Secretary (East ), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), leading the Indian delegation.
The just concluded talks in Delhi covered broadly the same areas of cooperation and bilateral engagement.
But this time around, officials from both countries also “shared views on the global trading environment and discussed opportunities to further develop New Zealand and India’s bilateral trade partnership,” according to a spokesperson for MFAT.
The focus areas from the NZ standpoint remains to “reduce market access barriers, and strengthen economic cooperation in agriculture, renewable energy and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.”
Noticeably, this round of trade talks between the two countries appears to have caused hardly a ripple in the Indian capital, Delhi. Local media were conspicuously inert to the event.
The timing of the talks, coming in the wake of the Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and the European Union as well as the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) signed between India and Australia, would appear to indicate the impetus came from Wellington.
Significantly, the MFAT statement makes no reference to the inconclusive bid launched during the John Key era of 2016 to forge an elusive FTA between India and New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has since shown little appetite to take her predecessor’s commitment forward. Her attention is prioritised on working out FTAs with the UK and the EU instead.
India is lukewarm on the issue and is yet to commit on reducing market access barriers for NZ businesses as a prelude to signing an FTA with New Zealand in the future.
NZ businesses eye India’s vast market for consumer products and services, particularly the investment opportunity presented by a burgeoning middle class.
Currently, NZ exporters are keen to gain a foothold in the Indian market but are daunted by the high tariffs.
Agriculture remains a key sticking point of bilateral negotiations for NZ.
But the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a regional strategy launched by the US which involves the four Quad countries (India, the US, Japan and Australia), as well as New Zealand and South Korea, underlines the strategic importance given by the US administration to India as an emerging power.
The inclusion of this on the agenda of the trade talks held in Delhi signals Wellington’s endorsement of India’s growing international stature.
However, with the tightening of immigration rules in the post-Covid scenario, the goal to attract and keep skilled migrants from India who can contribute to NZ’s economy has become an area of contention between the two countries.
How trade negotiations get past this hurdle remains to be seen.