Tackling the Kiwi-Indian perceptional problem
In the run up to India’s sixty third anniversary of independence, a new round of talks between New Zealand and India are under way. Officials of both countries are meeting this week in New Delhi to take forward the preliminary talks leading up to a possible free trade agreement in the next few years.
Simultaneously, an Indian Business Leaders conference was held in Auckland yesterday. These are indeed encouraging developments cementing ties between countries whose friendly relations go back several decades. The two countries are even joined at the hip, so to speak, by the year 1947, more about which you can read in our special India Independence Day section in this issue.
However, a free trade agreement between the two countries is not going to be easy. New Zealand’s Minister of Trade Tim Groser and his negotiating team are under no illusion about this fact. There are a number of matters that will need to be ironed out in the course of the long haul toward a workable agreement.
These will both be technical and perceptional. The technical matters will eventually be reasoned out across the negotiation tables and the usual give and take of tariffs and concessions that goes with such negotiations. It is the perceptional matters that New Zealand will have to pay particular attention to as regards their dealing with India.
Unlike in the case of the FTA with China, which was actually driven by China’s burning desire to sign an FTA with a developed first world country primarily as a trophy agreement, India will be vastly different. There is a great difference in the way the government works in China and India. While China can ram through the government’s agenda with almost no opposition, the Indian polity simply does not allow that.
And there in lies the rub. Both the trade minister and New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India Rupert Holborow, who is due to finish his New Delhi stint at the end of the year, have told me that New Zealand would have to put in massive efforts at managing perceptions within the numerous and diverse stakeholders of India’s bustling democracy.
The biggest – though hardly justifiable – fear of an FTA for the Indian agricultural and dairy sectors is that New Zealand, an established and highly advanced agricultural and dairy player in the global marketplace will cause problems for domestic industry. Especially so when the agricultural sector is facing a slew of long standing problem typified by the rash of suicides of poor farmers in several parts of the country.
It is such irrational fears that led to the action by a rightist political party in which tankers carrying Fonterra’s milk and milk products were spilt over the streets of Mumbai a couple of weeks ago. In fact, Mr Groser was speaking to me as the drama was unfolding in Mumbai. Clearly, his team has its work cut out in bringing about a whole new perspective among Indian dairy and agriculture players that a deal with New Zealand can actually be beneficial.
And no one better than Kiwi Indian and enlightened local businesspeople from India can help the New Zealand team in this task. New Zealand’s role in India’s dairy sector goes back nearly fifty years.
What many do not know is that one of the greatest co-operative dairy successes in the world – India’s Amul – had considerable inspiration from Fonterra in its formative years. Amul founder Dr Varghese Kurien had spent time here in New Zealand as he went about forming Amul.
Not only was the well known Aarey Milk Colony in Mumbai, a sprawling facility dedicated to dairy research, built with help from New Zealand but there is a hostel building donated by the New Zealand government as well as hundreds of milk container rail cars for milk transportation.
Such long term relations need to be talked about in the Indian media. Also, New Zealand needs to focus its attention in highlighting how it can help with the greatest problem that Indian agriculture faces: post harvest preservation, transportation and processing.
A combination of emotional appeal and practical advantage as value proposition would work well as a backdrop to the pursuit of the free trade agreement between the two countries, which has obvious advantages to the peoples of both nations.
Happy Indian Independence Day
In the run up to India’s sixty third anniversary of independence, a new round of talks between New Zealand and India are under way. Officials of both countries are meeting this week in New Delhi to take forward the preliminary talks leading up to a possible free trade agreement in the next few...
In the run up to India’s sixty third anniversary of independence, a new round of talks between New Zealand and India are under way. Officials of both countries are meeting this week in New Delhi to take forward the preliminary talks leading up to a possible free trade agreement in the next few years.
Simultaneously, an Indian Business Leaders conference was held in Auckland yesterday. These are indeed encouraging developments cementing ties between countries whose friendly relations go back several decades. The two countries are even joined at the hip, so to speak, by the year 1947, more about which you can read in our special India Independence Day section in this issue.
However, a free trade agreement between the two countries is not going to be easy. New Zealand’s Minister of Trade Tim Groser and his negotiating team are under no illusion about this fact. There are a number of matters that will need to be ironed out in the course of the long haul toward a workable agreement.
These will both be technical and perceptional. The technical matters will eventually be reasoned out across the negotiation tables and the usual give and take of tariffs and concessions that goes with such negotiations. It is the perceptional matters that New Zealand will have to pay particular attention to as regards their dealing with India.
Unlike in the case of the FTA with China, which was actually driven by China’s burning desire to sign an FTA with a developed first world country primarily as a trophy agreement, India will be vastly different. There is a great difference in the way the government works in China and India. While China can ram through the government’s agenda with almost no opposition, the Indian polity simply does not allow that.
And there in lies the rub. Both the trade minister and New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India Rupert Holborow, who is due to finish his New Delhi stint at the end of the year, have told me that New Zealand would have to put in massive efforts at managing perceptions within the numerous and diverse stakeholders of India’s bustling democracy.
The biggest – though hardly justifiable – fear of an FTA for the Indian agricultural and dairy sectors is that New Zealand, an established and highly advanced agricultural and dairy player in the global marketplace will cause problems for domestic industry. Especially so when the agricultural sector is facing a slew of long standing problem typified by the rash of suicides of poor farmers in several parts of the country.
It is such irrational fears that led to the action by a rightist political party in which tankers carrying Fonterra’s milk and milk products were spilt over the streets of Mumbai a couple of weeks ago. In fact, Mr Groser was speaking to me as the drama was unfolding in Mumbai. Clearly, his team has its work cut out in bringing about a whole new perspective among Indian dairy and agriculture players that a deal with New Zealand can actually be beneficial.
And no one better than Kiwi Indian and enlightened local businesspeople from India can help the New Zealand team in this task. New Zealand’s role in India’s dairy sector goes back nearly fifty years.
What many do not know is that one of the greatest co-operative dairy successes in the world – India’s Amul – had considerable inspiration from Fonterra in its formative years. Amul founder Dr Varghese Kurien had spent time here in New Zealand as he went about forming Amul.
Not only was the well known Aarey Milk Colony in Mumbai, a sprawling facility dedicated to dairy research, built with help from New Zealand but there is a hostel building donated by the New Zealand government as well as hundreds of milk container rail cars for milk transportation.
Such long term relations need to be talked about in the Indian media. Also, New Zealand needs to focus its attention in highlighting how it can help with the greatest problem that Indian agriculture faces: post harvest preservation, transportation and processing.
A combination of emotional appeal and practical advantage as value proposition would work well as a backdrop to the pursuit of the free trade agreement between the two countries, which has obvious advantages to the peoples of both nations.
Happy Indian Independence Day
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