India FTA Unites NZ First, Greens
National’s much-touted free trade deal with India featured in the Rural Issues Debate at Mystery Creek, Hamilton on Wednesday night.
She's just back in Parliament after six months on maternity leave but is quickly setting her sights on how to open new markets and expand others for our booming horticulture sector.
To that end she is hoping to visit Laos in the coming months to assess market opportunities for NZ.
She says this is part of her and the Government's strategy of getting on planes and meeting people in key target countries at all levels to build relationships that will lead to trade. She points to the recent trip by Prime Minister Luxon to the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, and the fact that Agriculture Minister Todd McClay and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters are on a plane every couple of weeks. All this is about relationship building.
While there is much talk that the golden days of ambitious, comprehensive FTAs such as the one with the UK are over, Grigg believes there are other ways and forums that can produce good outcomes for NZ.
For example, she says there are sectoral relationships and multilateral relationships such as the CPTPP which other nations are excited about joining, and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) which NZ is working on.
"While an FTA is a dream outcome, there are many other ways to do trade," she told Rural News.
As far as India is concerned, Grigg says there is a premise that it's not worth chasing an FTA because of dairy.
"But I say that's rubbish. We have kiwifruit, apples, education services, genetics and whole range of other goods and services going there and we can do trade with India," she says.
But to get deals, Grigg says NZ can't wait for countries to come knocking at the bottom of the Pacific, we need to be constantly banging on doors of potential trading partners.
