Indian trade
Iwrite this week’s column from Delhi in India, a bustling metropolis of 19 million people, and millions more if you take in the surrounding areas. Once again, I have been struck by the sheer mass of humanity that India represents. The colours, noise, scale, history and heat make it almost overwhelming to someone who spends most of their time in sedate Wellington suburbs.
But amid this unfamiliar setting, the first thing I came across when checking in at my hotel was a New Zealand junior cricket team in town for a competition.
Then I turned on the TV and there was Black Cap Trent Boult taking an amazing catch for Indian Premier League team the Delhi Daredevils at the local stadium in front of 40,000 adoring fans. I opened my emails and found an invitation to the local Anzac Day dawn parade.
I’m travelling with a group of academics, and we have been meeting serious Indian thinkers to talk about the state of the New Zealand-India relationship.
New Zealand has indicated it wants to grow its relationship with India; and part of the role of the Asia New Zealand Foundation is to work out what contribution we can make to that growth.
In 2016 we published a piece of research which noted that for New Zealanders, India brings to mind cricket, the Commonwealth and climbing. But that’s about the extent of it.
Our cultural connections are not to be underestimated. Indeed, Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in New Zealand and India is an important source of skilled migrants and students.
That said, New Zealand tends to measure its relationships by trade figures, as I’ve noted previously. When it comes to trade between our two countries the numbers are ok, but not as good as many think they should or could be.
In part, this is because India and New Zealand have different views about trade.
New Zealand sits pretty squarely on the liberal, open end of the spectrum. India is much more conservative. Our FTA negotiations have essentially stalled, in part because India thinks our dairy industry will hurt its farmers.
It doesn’t see what sense there is in allowing access to their market of 1.32 billion people, when our offering is 4.5 million people.
Of course, if the logic was just around the size of the market, New Zealand wouldn’t have many trade deals at all – and certainly not with Asean, China or South Korea. So, the arguments are much more nuanced; competitiveness, technology, innovation, people movements and mutual interests also play a role.
Try as we might, New Zealand has not been able to convince Indian officials as we have others.
During our time here, we’ve been discussing some of those areas of mutual interest, and other topics.
In recent months, the Indo-Pacific has also entered the international security lexicon, so we are keen to hear what that looks like from the ‘‘Indo’’ part.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put considerable effort into the Indian diaspora, and we are interested to know how that relates to the 4 per cent of New Zealanders of Indian heritage.
Although trade officials worry about New Zealand dairy access, an increasing portion of New Zealand’s trade with India is in services – technology and education. Where else can we increase connectivity?
As it stands, it’s easy to get the sense that New Zealand doesn’t really take its relationship with India that seriously. When will it be possible to fly directly to India?
Air New Zealand has now five direct flights to the US and none to India. Not one.
The travel flows between the two countries seem significant enough to support direct flights. About 62,000 Indians arrived in New Zealand in the year to February 2018, and about 70,000 New Zealand residents travelled in the other direction – a greater flow than many other routes that sustain direct airlinks.
India was also left out of the Governmentfunded Centres for Asia-Pacific Excellence initiative, which has programmes for North Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In terms of what the Asia New Zealand Foundation does to strengthen understanding and people-to-people links, we are starting a business internship in India. We already have artist residencies, a work placement for New Zealand journalists, and provide funding for arts, culture and media initiatives.
It’s clear, though, that there is an enormous amount to do. There is a long queue of countries wanting to do more with India.
New Zealand has a few advantages – in cricket, climbing and Commonwealth. But when there are 300 Indians for every New Zealander, it is us who will have to make the extra effort if we are to be relevant. It won’t be the other way around.
It is us who will have to make the extra effort if we are to be relevant.