NEW Zealand Prime Minister John Key is hopeful the election of Narendra Modi as India's new Prime Minister will rejuvenate free trade talks with India.
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party was elected in a landslide election victory over the weekend, bringing an end to the 10-year reign of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress Party.
The right wing Modi had campaigned on economic revival and growth for India, including promoting more international trade and investment in India which he had criticised the Congress Party for dragging its heels over.
Mr Key told the New Zealand Herald the chances of reaching an agreement in the near future were "getting better I think.''
"We are sort of hopeful we can reignite the free trade agreement with Modi as the new Prime Minister. He has obviously been very pro-business and he has had an overwhelming mandate delivered to him so you can see the Indian people want and expect to see high levels of economic growth.
"One of those things is trade, so we are certainly going to be taking it up with the new Indian Government at the appropriate time.''
Ravi Thapar, India’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, in a speech to attendees at the recent Kiwi Indian Hall of Fame function, also raised the issue of FTA between the two countries.
“The FTA will definitely happen, but it is a matter of tweaking it a bit for the mutual benefit of both countries,” Mr Thapar told the gathering of more than 200 VIPs and dignitaries, including Mr Key.
New Zealand began free trade talks with India in 2010 and there were originally hopes to reach an agreement by 2012.
Talks have stalled since then - the last round of talks were in July last year. Signing off on an agreement would help address concern New Zealand was becoming too dependent on China in its trade relations.
Fonterra has previously said India had potential to be as large as market as China.
Current two-way trade with India is at $1.1 billion and a free trade agreement was expected to more than double that to $3 billion by 2015. New Zealand's new target of trade with China is to reach $30 billion by 2020.