‘Scaling up our ideas with Indian partnership is where the future is’

Covid-19 took a big chunk of the growth through (a fall in) education and tourism. But actually, what we’ve seen over the last year is a 22 per cent increase in two-way trade. And so, we’re starting to see that ramp up and I have every confidence that in both tourism and education, we’ll see rapid increase back to pre-Covidlevels.  We’ve had some interruptions with things like the log trade where there have been biosecurity issues. They have to be worked through.

No, it’s not. Not immediately. We have come here (to India) with a large delegation and it is really about building partnerships. There’s trade and it’s growing in the absence of an FTA. And we think we can grow that in a steady and sustainable way. And the issues of FTAs, where we get into technical details and some of the sensitive areas, we believe will be worked through over time. But at this point, we’re here to build partnerships.

The dairy industry is very important to both India and New Zealand. And it is obviously high on sensitivity. We understand its importance for the livelihoods of those engaged in it. At the moment, we are not engaged in any partnerships other than those where we share technology to help one another in better productivity using what we understand are limited resources.

We also want partnerships in providing technology for opportunities in milk products that are yet to be created from raw milk protein. 

We are working at the moment on horticulture. And there is a whole range of things. We are working on partnership for apple production. We now hope to do the same with kiwi fruit. And there are many varieties of fruits where we have counter-seasonal production. Those are the areas where we can work on.  We also have a strong partnership with India in the area of technology.

In fact, Rakon is the New Zealand company to provide the GPS guidance for (India’s) rocket that got to the moon. Then we have companies with software technology assisting with infrastructural management. There are also nutraceutical companies (in India) creating vaccines taking raw material from New Zealand. These are used to make animal as well as human vaccines.

So, there are a huge number of possibilities for a country like ours that creates high quality raw materials with some creativity but often does not have the capacity to scale it up. Scaling those ideas in partnership with Indian companies is where we see the future.

Yes absolutely. We see it as a major step forward for the US in particular to come down and engage in our part of the world. The Indo Pacific is the area of huge potential growth. We are very pleased to be at the table working through the four pillars. While it is not focussed on goods market access, it is on all the other areas of cooperation including decarbonisation.  In a world full of disruption and uncertainty, any area of multilateral cooperation is a value to us all.

There are indications that India may still be part of the trade pillar. That would be great. There may be need for some adjustments to take account of India’s particular concerns. All of us come from different perspectives in the IPEF. We all have to be flexible to ensure that we reach an agreement. 

With Minister Goyal, it was the importance of the WTO. And the need for us to work together. We are a big country and a small country. But we all need to be protected by the rules of trade that don’t allow adhoc interventions by big players. Protecting the rights of developing countries to grow and prosper is as much a part of the WTO mandate as protecting the rights of small developed countries as developed nations.

Mutual recognition is something we continue to work through. In some areas it is lot easier than others. We have to just ensure that to maintain and increase the standards across all the areas of technology and trade, a better understanding of what one another expects is important. And so, in the area of healthcare, you know, we have particular cultural nuances with our Maori people that people who come into health have to understand. That’s a core part of our health service. It is not something that people from India automatically know.

So, we have to build in education systems to ensure that whatever your professional expertise we can provide additional value and opportunities.