BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
India and New Zealand have restarted free trade talks a decade after negotiations fell apart, as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon began his five-day tour of Delhi where he held bilateral talks withPrime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two sides have agreed to begin the first round of negotiations next month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement is a “major breakthrough” in the economic relationship between the two countries, Luxon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“India holds significant potential for New Zealand and will play a pivotal role in doubling New Zealand’s exports by value over the next 10 years,” Luxon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bilateral trade between the two countries is valued at under $2bn (\u00a31.55bn) currently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luxon is a keynote speaker at an ongoing geopolitical conference in Delhi, which will also be attended by the US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“India is an important power in the Indo-Pacific and I will discuss with Prime Minister Modi what more we can do together to maintain peace and prosperity in our region,” Luxon said after his arrival in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides trade, New Zealand said it was deepening its engagement with India across areas such as defence, security, sports and environment, adding that economic ties with Delhi were a “key priority”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 16 March, representatives of the Five Eyes \u2013 an intelligence-sharing alliance comprising New Zealand along with Australia, Canada, the UK and the US \u2013 attended a conference of intelligence and security chiefs hosted by India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Proximity to New Zealand is crucial to Delhi’s interests, as India aims to counter China in the Indian Ocean region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luxon is reportedly being accompanied by one of the largest delegations a prime minister has ever travelled with, underscoring the importance of the visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trade negotiations between the two countries had initially begun in 2010 but stalled after several rounds over issues such as market access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Zealand has sought greater access to India’s dairy market, which India has traditionally protected to support its farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After years of scepticism over free trade, India has recently become more open to negotiating bilateral deals with other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement to restart trade talks with New Zealand comes close on the heels of Delhi relaunching free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with the European Union and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, Delhi signed a $100bn free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association – a group of four European countries that are not members of the European Union – after almost 16 years of negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India and Australia also signed a major trade cooperation deal two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week India’s trade minister Piyush Goyal had “cautioned” an Indian exports organisation “to come out of their protectionist mindset” as the country tried to negotiate trade agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Delhi, these trade talks have assumed renewed significance on the back of US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tit-for-tat tariffs on imported goods from countries, including India. These are due to come into effect on 2 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: India and New Zealand have restarted free trade talks a decade after negotiations fell apart, as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon began his five-day tour of Delhi where he held bilateral talks withPrime Minister Narendra Modi. The two sides have agreed to begin the first round of negotiations next month. The announcement is a “major breakthrough” in the economic relationship between the two countries, Luxon said. “India holds significant potential for New Zealand and will play a pivotal role in doubling New Zealand’s exports by value over the next 10 years,” Luxon said. Bilateral trade between the two countries is… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45561,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559\/revisions\/45561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}