Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
New Zealand will send one of its largest ever prime ministerial delegations to India next week in a concerted charm offensive designed to boost trade and security ties with the fast-growing economic giant.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced the four-day trip to Delhi and Mumbai at his post-Cabinet media briefing on Monday afternoon, departing on Saturday.
While there, Luxon will sit down with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and deliver the inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue, India's premier defence and security dialogue.
Luxon told media he was determined to build a much broader relationship with India, the world's most populous country, on track to be the third biggest economy by 2030.
"They are, indeed, one of those multipolar leaders in the world now... it's the fourth largest military spending country," Luxon said.
"It's got a rapidly rising middle class, which creates huge trade opportunities... sadly, only 1.5 percent of our exports are actually going into India, as it currently stands today."
Luxon said the relationship had been broadly "non-existent" prior to the coalition taking power: "we have had to start from scratch".
Labour trade spokesperson - and former trade minister - Damien O'Connor rejected that his party had neglected the India-relationship and told RNZ that the pandemic had hampered opportunities for travel.
Deal or no deal?
The stakes are high for Luxon after he promised during a 2023 election debate that he would strike a free trade deal with India in his first term.
Formal negotiations have yet to resume and the opposition has called the deadline "completely unrealistic".
Pressed on the pledge, Luxon said he stuck by it, but he described his "real commitment" as one to deepen the trade relationship.
"What I'm looking for is just a much more comprehensive economic partnership and how we can move that forward," Luxon said.
"It's about momentum... you don't just go straight from zero, or even behind, with no relationship with India, to just walking through the front door and saying, you know, I want to have a deeper trade relationship."
The dairy sector will be one of the largest obstacles to making progress, as it was during the last rounds of trade talks between 2011 and 2015.
India's dairy industry is dominated by small-scale rural farmers who fear disruption from New Zealand's industrialised producers.
One possibility could be for New Zealand to follow Australia's lead and negotiate an "early harvest" deal without dairy, focused instead on other sectors.
Luxon said he had a different view from the former government which believed it was not worth pursuing a dairy-free deal.
"[Dairy will] be a very difficult part of a conversation, and it'll be hard, it'll be very tough, very difficult. But that's not a reason to shy off, and just say that's a market we turn off, when it's going to be the third biggest economy in the world, very, very shortly. It's just insane to me that you just wouldn't try."
The security stakes
Luxon's visit to India also comes against the backdrop of New Zealand unease at China's growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
China caused some alarm last month when it sent three navy vessels into the Tasman Sea to conduct live-fire exercises.
Luxon told media he viewed India as being "very much aligned" with New Zealand's views on security and stability in the region.
He said New Zealand needed to do a lot more with India as a partner on security and defence.
"There's a lot more that we can do in a defence joint exercises, visits, a whole bunch of different things that we can do in that space."
While India was likely to resonate with New Zealand's worries about China, there would be less alignment on the war on Ukraine. India has pursued a largely neutral stance and has never criticized Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Luxon said he was sure the conflict was come up in his conversation with Modi where he would make New Zealand's position clear: "No change for us. We stand with Ukraine."
