Expressing hopes that the free trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand will be finalised soon, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that talks are progressing fast between India and New Zealand. He is on a four-day official visit to New Zealand to review progress of the FTA negotiations between the two countries with his New Zealand counterpart Todd McClay. Goyal said ‘I believe this is a historic visit also because we are going to finalise the FTA very soon’. He added that both sides are respecting each other's sensitivities. He noted ‘Our teams have done a wonderful job. The few nuances that need to be addressed are before us. A lot of things, in the spirit of accommodation, have been closed.
Officials of India and New Zealand are holding the fourth round of negotiations in Auckland for the proposed free trade agreement. Negotiations in this round are focusing on key areas, including trade in goods and services, and Rules of Origin. The FTA negotiations were formally launched on March 16, 2025. The third round of negotiations for the agreement concluded on September 19 in Queenstown, New Zealand.
India's bilateral merchandise trade with New Zealand stood at $1.3 billion in 2024-25, registering a growth of nearly 49 per cent over the previous year. The proposed FTA is expected to further boost trade flows, promote investment linkages, strengthen supply chain resilience, and create a predictable framework for businesses in both countries. New Zealand's average import tariff is just 2.3 per cent. In a free trade agreement, two countries either significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them. They also ease norms to promote trade in goods and services.
India and New Zealand began negotiating the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in April 2010 to boost trade in goods, services, and investment. After nine rounds of discussions, however, the talks stalled in 2015. India's key goods exports to New Zealand include clothing, fabrics, and home textiles; medicines and medical supplies; refined petrol; agricultural equipment and machinery such as tractors and irrigation tools, auto, iron and steel, paper products, electronics, shrimps, diamonds, and basmati rice. The main imports are agricultural goods, minerals, apples, kiwifruit, meat products such as lamb, mutton, milk albumin, lactose syrup, coking coal, logs and sawn timber, wool, and scrap metals.
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