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Indo-Kiwi trade potential increasing

Supplied Content, Wellington, May 14, 2017

Winston Peters

The following is a speech delivered by Winston Peters, elected Member of Parliament from Northland and Leader of New Zealand First at a dinner hosted by his Party in honour of a visiting delegation of legislators from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council at Langham Hotel, Auckland on Saturday, May 13, 2017

Last year we had the pleasure of welcoming the Speaker of the Indian Parliament, Sumitra Mahajan. President of India, Pranab Mukherjee came to New Zealand on a six-day state visit – the first by a President of India.

This was 20 years after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited New Zealand.

The ties between India and New Zealand go back a long way and a lot of it has centred around cricket, a sport both our countries love.

Today more than 170,000 people of Indian origin live in New Zealand.

Every day that goes by the ties between us grow stronger.

Centenarian Athlete

Last month, Auckland hosted the World Masters Games and probably the most well publicised competitor was 101-year-old Man Kaur, from Punjab.

She showed us that age is only a number!

Air Link with India
This week we learned business groups in Auckland have been urging Air India to take one of its 10 services that travel to Sydney and Melbourne and divert it here to Auckland.

We could have a direct connection between either your home city Mumbai or Delhi and Auckland.

Growing trade

Trade between our two countries is growing.

New Zealand exports mainly commodities – coal, oil and wood – to India.

India exports gems, jewellery, spices, tea, and horticulture products to New Zealand.

In five years from 2007 to 2012 New Zealand’s trade with India grew to $1.1 billion and it is now worth more than $2.5 billion for New Zealand.

India is now New Zealand’s 10th largest trading partner.

During his visit to New Zealand, Mr Mukherjee said that India wants to enhance bilateral cooperation between the two countries in dairy development, food processing, communications and information technology, clean energy and water, disaster management, biotechnology, healthcare and services, to mention a few.

He said: “We would very much like to learn from the successful experience and practices of New Zealand and collaborate with you in creating new and innovative products and technology.”

Last year, during former Prime Minister John Key’s visit to India, he and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement.

This statement included a commitment to work towards a high quality, comprehensive and balanced bilateral Free Trade Agreement, which would deliver meaningful commercial outcomes.

Brexit/CCER

Exciting possibilities exist for both our countries. With Brexit and Britain’s departure from the EU, our political party, New Zealand First, sees this as an opportunity for the Commonwealth nations to draw even closer together economically.

The Commonwealth is already a dynamic powerhouse. It crosses every time zone and trading session in the world. It covers almost a quarter of the world’s land area.

Together, we have a population of over 2.3 billion, nearly a third of the world’s population.

In 2014, the Commonwealth produced GDP of US$10.45 trillion, a massive 17% of gross world product.

The combined gross domestic product of Commonwealth countries is predicted to hit US$14 trillion by 2020.

We already have a model for what could happen with our Closer Economic Relations (CCER) with Australia.

We believe that we should now have Closer Commonwealth Economic Relations, or CCER.

CCER is about free trade.

It could be the means to bring in other Commonwealth states, such as your country which is an emerging economic giant.

Yes – it could make the Commonwealth an economic colossus.

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Photo Caption:

Winston Peters

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