Business Partnerships Key To Trade Relationship With India

Following a year of positive engagement, the India New Zealand Business Council (INZBC) urges the government to stick to its strategy of building relationships between our two countries and supporting industry collaboration.

INZBC Chair Bharat Chawla warns that rushing into trade talks without that solid base runs the risk of delivering a substandard result for our businesses.

“We urge the New Zealand government to support the great work underway across industry to develop business and trade ties across sectors alongside any formal trade negotiations and to continue to build the relationship to deliver maximum value to New Zealand businesses.

“NZ Inc has been working to build partnerships and collaboration with Indian industry in areas such as kiwifruit, education, fintech and dairy. Much of this is being driven by the hard work and efforts of industry. These efforts have gained momentum since the end of the last round of formal trade negotiations with the business community taking a strong leadership role, working alongside the government.

“They’ve invested and they’re doing more business and building stronger partnerships and showing the benefits of close collaboration. They’re making New Zealand relevant to India which is giving the government a platform to take negotiations forward.

“This supports NZ Inc and forms a platform for more collaboration across more industries, building relationships and getting Kiwis ‘in the room’, showing how we can add value.

“Building a wider relationship focused on trade as well as cooperation in science and education and culture and sport was a key recommendation of the INZBC report India New Zealand: A relationship ready for its next phase and we believe the strategy remains the right one.

“We ask that the government recognises the important role these industry agreements play in bilateral relations and supports them to run alongside any future government negotiations.

“There has been so much movement in such a short time and industry collaboration is key to trade success,” says Mr. Chawla.

The INZBC has been working for more than 30 years to build long-term positive economic and trade relations between the two countries, with 400+ members across the primary sector, fintech, education and SMEs.

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