Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on Trade Minister Todd McClay making a fifth trip to India in nine months

Trade Minister Todd McClay is visiting India this week for the fifth time in nine months.

He’ll meet with India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, for talks around forestry, agriculture and trade between the two countries.

It follows Indian President Droupadi Murmu’s visit here last week.

Newstalk ZB Political Editor Jason Walls joined Ryan Bridge.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Z B Political editor Jason Walls. Because our Trade Minister,
Todd McClay, I asked you before the break, he's visiting
India this week. How many times do you think he
has met face to face with the Indian Commerce minister
in the last nine months. I know you'd probably say
once or twice, maybe five times. Apparently, yes, and he's
going to do it again. They're talking forestry, agriculture and

(00:22):
of course trade between our two countries. Luxon wants an
FTA with India within the next will within this term. Basically.
Jason Wallves is with US Live this morning. Jason, good morning, Good.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hey, this seems like an awful lot of meetings. Is
this part of the drive to get this FTA? Do
you Reckon?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh? Absolutely? I mean Chris Luxon has made absolutely no
secret of his desire to get a free trade agreement
with India. But it's not something that New Zealand is
just deciding to do now. They've been trying to push
for this for a long time. In fact, I remember
when I was a CUB reporter interviewing Todd McLay last
time he was Trade minister in the last National government
about his desire to get a free traded agreement with India,

(01:04):
and he said that he was really pushing to do so,
and then I've interviewed various different trade ministers from labor
to try and do it. It's all well and good
to say it, but getting a free traded deement agreement
with India is tough because of the dairy component as well,
and a lot of other countries will struggled with that.
So although Todd McLay has met with his count five
times this year, I think that he's still going to

(01:26):
face quite a few obstacles actually getting a deal over
the line.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
And there's a difference between a deal like excess and
fear access. Right do they have has lucks and sit
bottom lines on this? Because the Aussies have got about
eighty five percent of exports terror free. Have we have
we quantified the quality of the deal that we're wanting.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, I don't think Luxeon's got into those sorts of details, yes,
and I think he's really just wanting to get his
foot in the door before actually getting in and quantifying
some of those more finer details. But just any sort
of better access into that market will be extremely helpful
for new Zealand. I mean, they don't need to tell
you the size of the Indian market, which is exactly

(02:09):
why Chris lucksm has put so much emphasis on that.
I mean that was the Indian president, that was just
in New Zealand last week in the Prime Minister was saying,
that's just another example of how our two countries have
this growing and burdening and growing relationships. So he'll be
hoping that this meeting with Todd Clay and Todd McLay
coming this week will be bearing fruit so that we

(02:30):
can go forward and actually get something on the dotted line.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah. Absolutely, Hey, very quickly the ICR announcement this week.
Obviously everybody is waiting with baited breath, but no one
more perhaps than the government because I mean they can't
tell them they want the cuts, but boy, it would
help them if it happened, right.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh absolutely. I mean they can cut as many taxes
as they can, they can cut taxes until they're blue
in the face, but at the end of the day,
if mortgage rates aren't coming down, it's a problem for
them because people won't be getting the impact of that
tax relief because it'll be swallowed up by interest rates,
so they'll be absolutely wanting to see that rate come down.
And Nikola Willis has made no secret of the fact

(03:09):
that she wants to see the ocr fall. However, as
you say, she can't explicitly say that no matter that.
I think that Adrian Orr will be feeling an enormous
amount of pressure from the ninth floor, the eighth floor
of the beehive to start cutting those rates, but as
you say, he's completely independent, so he can do what
he wants.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Thanks Jason, Jason Wall's News Talk zed B political editor.
For more from News Talk ZEDB, listen live on air
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