{"id":17776,"date":"2025-12-22T19:06:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=17776"},"modified":"2025-12-22T19:07:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:07:00","slug":"new-zealand-concludes-free-trade-agreement-with-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=17776","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand concludes free trade agreement with India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Over half of products duty-free from day one.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>New Zealand to offer 1,667 temporary work visas annually.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Extra 1,000 working-holiday visas each year.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Zealand and India struck a free trade agreement, both governments said on Monday, making it easier for New Zealand&#8217;s exporters to reach the world&#8217;s biggest population and an economy forecast to be worth NZ$12 trillion ($7 trillion) by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The agreement eliminates or reduces tariffs on 95% of New Zealand&#8217;s exports to India with more than half of products to be duty free on day one of the pact, improving access to India&#8217;s rapidly expanding middle class, the New Zealand government said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Zealand would offer some 1,667 temporary work visas a year for people in areas where it has skills shortages, including doctors, nurses, teachers, technology professionals and engineers, and another 1,000 places a year in its working holiday visa program, matching Australia&#8217;s free trade pact with India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The gains are wide-ranging and significant,&#8221; said New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;India is the world&#8217;s most populous country and is the fastest-growing big economy, and that creates opportunities for jobs for Kiwis, exports and growth,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The countries expect to sign the agreement in the first half of 2026, the New Zealand government said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Zealand&#8217;s trade minister, Todd McClay, said the deal put the country on an equal or better footing than other countries which traded with India and &#8220;will deliver thousands of jobs and billions in additional exports&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Indian government confirmed the pact without giving further detail. India&#8217;s trade minister was scheduled to speak with reporters later on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The deal makes good on a 2022 election promise from New Zealand&#8217;s governing National Party that if elected it would finalise a New Zealand-India free trade agreement in its first term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But parliamentary approval was not immediately assured. New Zealand First, with which the Nationals have a coalition and which holds eight of the 123 seats, would vote against the deal, said NZ First leader Winston Peters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The deal &#8220;gives too much away, especially on immigration, and does not get enough in return for New Zealanders, including on dairy&#8221;, Peters said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two-way trade between the two countries totalled NZ$3.14 billion in 2024, dominated by pharmaceuticals from India and forestry and agricultural products from New Zealand, including wool, logs and apples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand and India struck a free trade agreement, both governments said on Monday, making it easier for New Zealand&#8217;s exporters to reach the world&#8217;s biggest population and an economy forecast to be worth NZ$12 trillion ($7 trillion) by 2030. The agreement eliminates or reduces tariffs on 95% of New Zealand&#8217;s exports to India with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440","service":"facebook","timestamp":1766412503,"status":"success"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17778,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17776\/revisions\/17778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}