India’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singh is scheduled to be in New Zealand later this month in a trip being described as a step-up in bilateral relations.
Sources say officials are working on securing meetings with senior government officials, and possibly even at the ministerial level, during the trip that will be the second visit by an Indian minister within a year.
As officials firm up the finer details, three public events involving the minister have already been announced. Singh is scheduled to attend a meet-and-greet session organised by Indian High Commissioner Neeta Bhushan in Christchurh on September 24, and on Queenstown on September 26.
The minister is then scheduled to be a keynote speaker at India Business Summit on September 28 organised by Auckland Chamber of Commerce.
The trip comes amid a significant uptick in diplomatic and business activity between New Delhi and Wellington lately.
Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met Nanaia Mahuta when he a visited last year, followed by a trip to India by his counterpart early this year.
More recently, two vessels of Indian Navy docked in Auckland and Wellington on a supply visit for four days starting August 31.
INS Kolkata and INS Sahyadri were the first naval vessels to visit New Zealand since 2016, and officials say the trip strengthened defence cooperation between the two countries.
Neeta Bhushan described the visit as “historic”. “This [visit by the ships] is reflective of the fact that our bonds are getting closer and deeper across sectors, especially in the sphere of defence,” she said.
Simon Bridges, Auckland Chamber of Commerce CEO, told The Indian Weekender he hoped Singh’s presence at the business summit this month will ensure “there is momentum to the positive energy” around relations between India and New Zealand.
“The summit will have a diverse expert panel, and it is a great opportunity for anyone to get up-to the-minute advice in bilateral trade and relations.”
Last month, New Delhi and Wellington agreed to increase bilateral cooperation during official talks when an Indian delegation visited the capital city for the fifth India-New Zealand Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) on August 19.
The Indian team was led by the Secretary (East) of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Saurabh Kumar; and co-chaired by Deborah Geels from the New Zealand foreign ministry.
Officials said both sides expressed satisfaction at the enhanced engagement between the two countries. “There was appreciation on both sides about the fact that a lot had been done in the last one year following up on the visit of Dr S Jaishankar,” Neeta Bhushan had told The Indian Weekender.
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