Venkat Raman
Auckland, May 12, 2025
New Zealand is serious about lifting its relationship with India to a higher level, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said.
Mr Peters has time and again emphasised this ‘seriousness’ partly to dispel the doubts cast during the tenure of his predecessor Nania Mahuta who relegated relations with India to the backburner saying that an FTA with India was not her priority.
“New Zealand’s Coalition Government has made clear over the past 18 months, through our actions and policies, that we intend to seriously lift our relations with India. As Foreign Minister, I have spent much of this Parliamentary term travelling around the world advancing New Zealand’s interests. But my very first visit outside Australia and the Pacific since returning as Foreign Minister was to India,” he said.
Boosting bilateral relations
Mr Peters was speaking at the ‘Boardroom to Border’ Leadership Dialogue organised by the India New Zealand Business Council at Pullman Auckland on May 9, 2025.
Among those at the half-day dialogue were India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita, High Commissioner Neeta Bhushan and Consul General in Auckland Dr Madan Mohan Sethi.
Later, Mr Peters held bilateral talks with the Indian delegation at the Office of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Auckland. He said that the meeting provided an opportunity to exchange views on the heinous terrorist attack in Kashmir last month, developments between India and Pakistan in the last few days, and New Zealand’s wish to help support a seriously rapid de-escalation of the situation.
He said that he chose to visit Gujarat as a part of his visit to India last year.
“Our government wanted to send an unambiguous signal to the people and Government of India that New Zealand wishes for our countries to draw ever closer – united by shared interests and a mutual desire to build deeper, mutually beneficial cooperation. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is one of the world’s most impressive and astute statesmen. We have been pleased to work closely with him on this project of drawing our countries closer together,” he said.
The Rise of India
Mr Peters said India’s rise over the past generation has been impressive.
“There are few countries in the world that have been so dramatically transformed over the past 35 years as India. We have seen hundreds of millions of Indians lifted out of poverty; huge improvements in education, health and life expectancy; and a breathtaking economic expansion. All of this has been achieved while maintaining India’s proud democratic tradition of settling the inevitable differences that emerge in a country of such immense scale and diversity at the ballot box,” he said.
Mr Peters said that he visited Lok Sabha last year and was pleased to note that the carpets featured New Zealand wool.
“I got a first-hand sense of the scale and magnificence of Indian democracy. India’s rise has been a force for good in our region and for our world. We want to draw closer with India not in one domain, but in many domains. New Zealand and India are two of the world’s great, long-standing democracies – and we have a shared objective of an open, free, democratic and peaceful Indo-Pacific region. To achieve that, we need to be cooperating in as many areas as possible,” he said.
(Indian High Commission Photo)
Role in the Indo-Pacific
Mr Peters said that India and New Zealand need to work across the Indo-Pacific including with Pacific Island countries.
“We need to manage our increasingly contested and disordered strategic environment via more regular, intensive high-level dialogue. We need to address shared security and defence challenges, by embedding deeper engagement in these areas,” he said.
Mr Peters said that his government was keen to boost its diplomatic presence in India but did not provide details.
Some sources said that apart from increasing the complement of staff in the High Commission in Delhi, New Zealand may open Consulates, possibly in Gujarat in the West and Hyderabad or Bengaluru in the South.
“We need to pursue shared trade and economic opportunities, including tourism and education. We should also make the most of our intensifying people, sporting and cultural connections. There is so much potential in the relationship between New Zealand and India. Given the serious progress our two countries have made in the last 18 months, now is the time to work to realise that potential,” Mr Peters said.
