Auckland: Visiting Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma has said India and New Zealand are in the process of negotiating a “comprehensive economic co-operation agreement in trade, investment and services” that will be “much more than just a Free Trade Agreement.”
Mr Sharma was addressing a 250-strong group of businesspeople in Auckland yesterday (May 9). He invited New Zealand businesses to participate in India’s unfolding success story that has seen the country grow at over 8% every year over much of the past decade.
He said bilateral trade between the two countries was expected to grow threefold from $1billion to $3billion by 2014, even as the FTA negotiations progressed. Meanwhile, officials in the minister’s delegation will meet New Zealand trade officials for their fifth round of talks on the proposed FTA this week.
New Zealand exports about $750 million worth of coal, wood, dairy and other merchandise to India while importing about $250 million worth of small machinery parts, food products and a range of small goods. This trade imbalance needed to be corrected and there was ample scope for it, Mr Sharma said.
Outlining the opportunities for New Zealand businesses, Mr Sharma said India’s agriculture sector was primed to receive foreign direct investment of a whopping $200 billion over the next five years.
India is the second largest producer of fruits, vegetables and grain, Mr Sharma revealed, but its largely underdeveloped agriculture sector struggled with post harvest storage, transportation and distribution management, resulting in preventable spoilage of perishables.
Investment in post harvest preservation technologies was particularly important as the world’s climate change, food inflation and food security challenges continually intensified. Better supply chain management in produce could significantly bring down hunger, Mr Sharma said.
The Indian government has earmarked 46 dedicated food parks that could receive up to 100% foreign direct investment for approvals through the “automatic route,” he said.
Though India was the world’s largest producer of milk, there was much to learn from New Zealand, Mr Sharma said. He said the Indian government “deeply appreciated” New Zealanders for the assistance that had been offered to the Indian dairy industry over the years.
The minister invited New Zealand businesses to step up their engagement with Indian industry in the rapidly growing services sector, notably education, tourism films, animation, film post production and the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO).
The fact that India had made rapid strides in wine production and marketing it internationally was not widely known in this part of the world, Mr Sharma said. But rather than compete, New Zealand and India could work jointly in the wine industry, he said. “India has the land and the climate and it could lead to a successful partnership.”
What is also not widely known is the progress Indian companies have made in the drugs and pharmaceutical sector. Mr Sharma said that India now had 25% of the world’s production of generic drugs and after US drug firms it was Indian firms that had the highest number of approvals from the US food and Drug Administration.
An opportunity to collaborate on leading edge development projects in molecular biochemistry is growing by leaps and bounds and that is another area New Zealand could participate, Mr Sharma said.
India’s government has recently set up the “Innovation Council,” headed by the Prime Minister, who has named 2011-2020 the “decade of innovation.” New Zealand has been known for being a nation of innovators, Mr Sharma said, and this was another opportunity to work together with India on a range of innovative technologies – from pharmaceuticals and agriculture to alternative energy and green technologies.
In the past few years, India had signed trade deals with a number of emerging countries under what the minister said was the government’s “Look East” policy. These included the Asean bloc, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Malaysia. “The emerging seven will soon overtake the G7,” Mr Sharma said. India was looking forward to the continuing trade negotiations with New Zealand and hoped these would be concluded soon, he said.
INZBC chairman Wenceslaus Anthony presented the welcome address while FICCI chairman Robin Banerjee and Glidepath chairman Sir Ken Stevens delivered speeches. National Party Member of Parliament Kanwaljit Bakshi and India’s High Commissioner to New Zealand Admiral Sureesh Mehta were also present at the well-attended lunch meeting comprising officials and businesspeople from both countries.
The event was jointly organised by the India New Zealand Business Council (INZBC) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in association with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Auckland Council and was sponsored by ANZ Bank.
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