Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the appointment of career diplomat David Pine as the new High Commissioner to India.
A press release from the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs a short while ago confirmed the new appointment to New Delhi.
“As my visit to New Delhi and Mumbai with Trade Minister David Parker in February demonstrated, New Zealand and India could and should be doing more together,” Mr Peters said.
“As fellow Commonwealth democracies, our strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region is going from strength to strength," Mr Peters further added.
Mr Pine has previously served as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Malaysia and Brunei and Ambassador to the Philippines. He has also had postings in New York and Canberra. More recently, he was Chair of the Trade for All Advisory Board announced by Prime Minister Ardern in August 2018.
Th post of NZ's High Commissioner to India has been lying vacant since quite some time after the previous High Commissioner Joana Kempkers returned back late last year a little bit early than the scheduled end of her tenure and started her new role of Divisional Manager, Global Development and Scholarships, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The mission was temporarily manned by Graham Morton, the Principal Adviser Asia & Americas in MFAT, who also overseed the visit of Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Trade Minister David Parker, earlier this year.
Since the end of the visit, Mr Morton has also returned back to headquarters in Wellington leaving the young career diplomat & Deputy High Commissioner Erin Duncan in charge of the New Delhi Mission.