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Todd McClay: Trade Minister celebrates new Free Trade Agreement with India · The SME Stream

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
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  Speaker 2: So the government has done it. They promise us a
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  Speaker 2: fair trade agreement with India in their first term and
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  Speaker 2: it's happened. Under the deal, eighty two percent of exports
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  Speaker 2: to India will be duty free, with over half beginning
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  Speaker 2: on day one. Notably, the deal four is short of
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  Speaker 2: a major win for the dairy sector, the most valuable
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  Speaker 2: though being duty free export or bulk infant formula. So
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  Speaker 2: joining us right now is Tom McLay who's been back
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  Speaker 2: and forth from India a lot and is our trade minister.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Todd Andy, Good morning, Merry Christmas.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: Who are the big winners?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, I think across the board all New Zealanders
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  Speaker 3: are and everybody in the economy does very well out
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  Speaker 3: of this. In particular as a couple of highlight sheep
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  Speaker 3: meat is going to be a big winner. They face
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  Speaker 3: a thirty three percent tariff which goes to Zera on
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  Speaker 3: day one. You might have seen we did a bit
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  Speaker 3: of research before Australia got their FDA. New Zealand sold
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  Speaker 3: about eighty nine percent of or eighty nine percent of
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  Speaker 3: all the important sheet me that India came from New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: Since then, it's dropped to about eight to nine percent
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  Speaker 3: Australians in the nineties. So we can left all the
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  Speaker 3: playing field. But across the board there are gains for everybody,
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  Speaker 3: albeit in some areas modest where we think there's a
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  Speaker 3: bit more work to do over time.
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  Speaker 2: Where's the real hangar in India? I mean, I know
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  Speaker 2: we've got duty free axious for our fruit and vegetables.
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  Speaker 2: Are they hot on fruit and vegetables? We've got duty
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  Speaker 2: free axious for iron, steel and scrap at a medium
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  Speaker 2: Are they hot?
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  Speaker 1: You know?
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  Speaker 2: What are the areas that they are hot on?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: So if you think about India has very very high
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  Speaker 3: teriff rates. Wine as exaples is one hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 3: percent tariff weight rate. So the southern New Zealand wine
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  Speaker 3: and there are a ten dollars bottle of wine cost
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  Speaker 3: you twenty five dollars in the poor old wine grown
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand doesn't give me an extra So we've been
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  Speaker 3: able to get that down. Wherever you have high teriff rates,
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  Speaker 3: when those lower, generally what we see is a lot
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  Speaker 3: more trades start to go to flourish. So I think
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  Speaker 3: we're going to see across our exports a lot of
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  Speaker 3: gain over the next couple of years. But in particular
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  Speaker 3: the answer is everything, because you know, India produces a
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  Speaker 3: lot for themselves. There's four hundred million people who have
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  Speaker 3: you know, a middle class grows about seven hundred million
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  Speaker 3: people over the next five or six years. What we
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  Speaker 3: know is then they want to look to the world
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  Speaker 3: and buy the things others consume. And so I think
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  Speaker 3: that we're going to look back in sort of a
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  Speaker 3: decade time at this announcement and just see nothing but
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  Speaker 3: good news.
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  Speaker 2: Well, what do export us need to know to actually
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  Speaker 2: capitalize on this new access? What we need to know
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  Speaker 2: about the Indian market that we currently don't know and
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  Speaker 2: we're not doing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very interesting. It's a tough place to do business,
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  Speaker 3: just because you know, every country has a different way
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  Speaker 3: of doing things. When I first visited maybe fifteen years ago,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it was enjoyable, was loud, it was chaotic.
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  Speaker 3: You get back there now they've got the head down
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  Speaker 3: and the working hard. They're building more universities every year
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  Speaker 3: than anyone else in the world, are constructing roads. You know,
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  Speaker 3: the economy really is starting the pump and with that,
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  Speaker 3: of course kind of a big opportunity, and particularly around consumers.
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  Speaker 3: We will be leading a number of trade missions up there.
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  Speaker 3: The government already is putting more effort. We're bolstering our
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  Speaker 3: diplomatic presence. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will be looking
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  Speaker 3: to see how they can put more people in the
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  Speaker 3: market to help KIWIS. But inevitably it comes down to
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  Speaker 3: a relationship and one of the real reasons we're able
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  Speaker 3: to get this deal done in two years, although it
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  Speaker 3: was nine months of negotiation, a relationship. Both sides have
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  Speaker 3: worked very hard to get to know each other. We've
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  Speaker 3: grown a lot of respect. We've been able to land
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  Speaker 3: a deal that we view as good for both sides.
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  Speaker 3: So Key is going to have to get up in
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  Speaker 3: the market and grow those long term, sustainable relationships.
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  Speaker 2: So there's two sides to every deal. Sure, it's great
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  Speaker 2: for us, What do India get in return?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, two things. The first is it's one of
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  Speaker 3: the highest quality trade agreements that they've done, and particularly
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  Speaker 3: around the rules, it's very similar to what we did
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  Speaker 3: with China more than twenty years ago. It's a very
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  Speaker 3: high quality agreement, one of the best that they've done.
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  Speaker 2: But what does India get, Well.
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  Speaker 3: What I was going to say is I think they
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  Speaker 3: use this as a formula go into deals with other
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  Speaker 3: nations now the European Union negotiating with some of the
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  Speaker 3: things we have done on that. Firstly, Secondly, they get
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  Speaker 3: access to our market, so we drop tari phrase to
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  Speaker 3: zero on day one. Although we're only five million people,
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  Speaker 3: we buy almost twenty billion dollars worth of goods and
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  Speaker 3: service from China, so they want to compete with that.
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  Speaker 3: And then what we've also done is we've looked at
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  Speaker 3: parts of the New Zealand economy that we need skills
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  Speaker 3: and and we've agreed a very small number of Indian
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  Speaker 3: nationals that could come in or a limited three year
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  Speaker 3: visa under New Zealand immigration conditions and come and help,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in healthcare, in engineering and so on. And
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  Speaker 3: that we think is going to help our economy grow
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  Speaker 3: in areas where we don't have the skills we need
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  Speaker 3: for short periods of time.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So the thing with the FDA with India, it's
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  Speaker 2: always been hard to get across, and it's always been
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  Speaker 2: because of cows and immigration and I see that, you'll mate,
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  Speaker 2: Winston Peters has come straight out and poop pood the
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  Speaker 2: whole thing. And I presume, and I'm going to find
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  Speaker 2: out from Winston after the seven to thirty news, I
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  Speaker 2: presume it's because he's worried that there'll be excessive immigration.
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  Speaker 2: Did you give away too much?
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  Speaker 3: We did? And look, I've got a lot of respect
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  Speaker 3: for Winston, but he's absolutely categorically wrong. In those one thousand,
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  Speaker 3: six hundred and sixty seven people from India each year
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  Speaker 3: who are skilled national doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, ict professionals
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  Speaker 3: are able to come here for a three year limited
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  Speaker 3: visa under the conditions of New Zealand sets. If we
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  Speaker 3: don't need teachers, example, we can change that around. They
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  Speaker 3: will come from the list of people that are already
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  Speaker 3: probably coming and three years only, non renewable, no right
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  Speaker 3: to reside, You're no right to live here. Can't you
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  Speaker 3: know that it doesn't give any guarantees about their families
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  Speaker 3: or anything coming like that. And these are people that
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  Speaker 3: we need in our economy. We find them from all
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  Speaker 3: around the world. So it's not a large number of
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  Speaker 3: people when you consider in fact, about three percent of
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  Speaker 3: all the skilled visas we can come into New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: every year. So look, I get that there will be
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  Speaker 3: some people out there think we should have got more
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  Speaker 3: than the others that said, you know, we might have
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  Speaker 3: given too much away. One point four billion people we
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  Speaker 3: now will have access to and this is the best
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  Speaker 3: trade deal that India has done with anybody in the world.
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  Speaker 3: I think is going to be good for.
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  Speaker 2: Yourse other Todd mcfai, Traig Minister, I thank you for
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  Speaker 2: your time.
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