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Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay.
Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay is making a whistlestop visit to India this week to meet with his counterpart in the Indian government.
This is McClay’s first trip as Trade Minister.
He says the decision to go so soon is to signal that developing a close relationship with India is a top priority for the new government.
McClay is just going by himself with one staff member from his office. He told Rural News that the goal is to start a conversation about ways the two governments can strengthen the relationship.
McClay will be in India for just one day. As well as meeting his trade counterpart, he plans to meet with large business groups in the country to assess trade and investment opportunities and talk about ways the two countries can cooperate.
There has been a lot talk about NZ getting an FTA with India, but the possibilities of this happening in the near future seem remote – the stumbling block being dairy. However, McClay points out that India has done trade deals of varying quality with other countries. He says the way forward is to have deals based on rules-based trade.
“Talk to many people here in NZ and they see India in the context of trade and cricket. But the relationship is much more than that,” McClay explains.
“We believe that India has an opportunity to play a very constructive role in the Pacific with us. We think there will also be many international organisations where India and NZ have similar positions that we can cooperate on.”
McClay says this trip is about staring the process and is just the first of many visits to India. In the new year, both he and the Minister of Foreign Affairs will go there again to build on these preliminary talks.
On his way back to NZ, McClay is stopping off in Singapore to have talks with business people.
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