Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal held a bilateral meeting with Minister for Trade of New Zealand, Todd McClay to strengthen the trade relations and explore opportunities for mutual growth and cooperation.

At the meeting, the leaders recognized the importance of trade facilitation and discussed measures to streamline trade processes, reduce trade barriers, and promote a more conducive environment for businesses and investors from both nations.

New Zealand’s Trade Minister appreciated the efforts made by India to sort out the issue related to export of wooden logs to India. He also commended India’s Presidency of G20 and the outcomes thereof, which are significant milestones as it seeks to find practical global solutions for the benefit of all.

The Ministers expressed the need to strengthen the trade and economic relationship by increasing engagement between both the countries under a collaborative approach that engages officials from across relevant departments and the private sector, wherever appropriate.

The broad and informal engagements by creating working groups on specific areas of mutual interest are aimed at fresh ideas for new, innovative and productive approaches for economic partnership between both the countries.

They emphasized that new initiatives should also focus on encouraging, facilitating and coordinating collaboration of technology and expertise for genuine mutual benefit and that the opportunities in each other’s markets, which is of interest to businesses of both the countries should be explored.

Both the Ministers acknowledged the longstanding friendly relations between the two countries built on the foundation of mutual trust and respect and expressed their commitment to further enhancing bilateral trade, investment, and economic cooperation. They highlighted the need to deepen engagement in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, pharma, connectivity, education and tourism.

The Ministers acknowledged the strong step-up in engagement between businesses in the two countries, and the desirability of ensuring this provides impetus to the Government-to-Government dialogue.

The importance of the annual meeting of the Joint Trade Committee (JTC), established under the 1986 India-New Zealand Trade Agreement, and regular engagement at a senior level was also acknowledged.

They agreed that both sides should meet on a regular basis, as convenient, for bilateral discussions on trade and investment issues and co-operative activities.

Piyush Goyal along with his New Zealand counterpart discussed issues related to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC) and assured each other of co-operation and mutual understanding for a positive approach to reach a decision on the long standing issue of Public Stock Holding (PSH) during MC13.