India FTA timed right for NZ, says trade analyst

He told Rural News that NZ had a window to get this deal now and that if we hadn’t taken it, the next opportunity could have been years away, with no guarantee of a better deal.

He says he was a bit critical at the time the EU deal was announced and thought that maybe it was concluded a bit early.

“But this one is a different kettle of fish, and the scale of this opportunity cannot be underestimated.

“The present agreement is very advantageous, especially for some sectors like sheepmeat, and that is a very big gain. Also, kiwifruit and apples, although the tariffs are still quite high for fruit over the tariff quota, but I understand that both industries are quite happy with that,” he says.

Jacobi says while the deal wasn’t so good for dairy, that sector wasn’t completely excluded, with some higher value dairy product included. He says there was also an undertaking to at least reexamine some of the dairy tariff issues with India. He says there is understandable disappointment within the dairy industry.

“But India wasn’t going to budge on that. India’s dairy production cannot meet all the needs of its population, so over time maybe something will change, but this is not going to happen in the immediate future,” he says.

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Jacobi says the high tariffs on NZ wine are likely to remain until India concludes an FTA with the EU, then some deal with NZ may be done.

He says the FTA must be seen in the context of a very disruptive international environment and it was simply not possible to get the sort of gains that we had earlier, for example with China or even the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

He says the new FTA gives NZ a unique opportunity now to develop its relationship with India.

“This is the third time we have tried to get a deal with India and so I totally understand the Government’s decision to take it. Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s magically going to be a success overnight, because tariffs are still quite high on several items; it’s going to take a long time for it to get going. But it has given us quite a good base to develop this economic relationship,” he says.