The trade minister has specified three international agreements that New Zealand wants to formally engage in with India, as part of the island country’s efforts to re-engage with the South Asian giant.
Todd McClay wrapped up a visit to India on December 18-19, his first international trip as the trade minister, conveying a sense of urgency that Wellington accords to New Delhi going forward.
During the visit, McClay underscored he is looking forward to the two countries becoming formal partners in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).
"India is already part of three pillars–the supply chain pillar, the climate-focused cleaner economy pillar, and a fair economy pillar focused on rule of law issues such as corruption.
“We appreciate the constructive role of India's trade and negotiation of these pillars. And I'm looking forward to New Zealand and India becoming formal partners in these 3 agreements as they come into force," he said at the New Zealand-India Economic Relations Partnership Pathway event in New Delhi.
McClay’s visit to India comes in the backdrop of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon repeatedly emphasising getting better trade and diplomatic relations going with India will be a high priority for his government.
The minister emphasised he envisages a bilateral relationship that has partnership at its core. "This means supporting India's economic ambitions in a way that benefits both countries.
“It means knowing each other better and investing across a relationship in areas of importance to us both. And I'm keen to hear in my conversations here in Delhi about the areas where enormous potential for us [lies] to strengthen our partnership for New Zealand. You should expect to see an increasing tempo of engagement across all areas of our relationship and at all levels of government."
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A former head of India’s public policy think-tank reciprocated the enthusiasm. Amitabh Kant, who was CEO of Niti Aayog, said India and New Zealand need to openly work in the agriculture sector.
While speaking at the event titled ‘Partnership Pathway: New Zealand India Economic Relations’, alongside McClay, he said, "You know we feel very protective about our farmers as far as the dairy sector is concerned and I am very clear about this that Fonterra etc are top class company giving massive amount of value added in milk.
“Now, we should not feel very threatened about it. We should get NDDB [National Dairy Development Board] to work with them. As you know it could be a strategic partnership so that Indian companies should gain from that and that will help us to get into a range of value of production in dairy sector. Their dairy sector is the most advanced in the world and I think there's plenty to put India to get on that.”
During his trip, McClay also met counterpart Piyush Goyal, a meeting in which he said he conveyed New Zealand’s intent to take the bilateral relationship to the next level.