Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister on heading to the UAE for exports deal

The Prime Minister has headed to the United Arab Emirates.

Christopher Luxon will hold talks with Emirati leaders and witness the signing of the New Zealand-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

The two-way trade between New Zealand and the UAE is valued at NZ$1.3 billion and promises duties will be eliminated on 98.5% of New Zealand’s exports to the UAE from day one of the agreement.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon joins the show.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
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And the Prime Minister setting into the United Arab Emirates
today he'll be holding talks with the Emirati leaders and
witnessing the signing of a new agreement which eliminates duty
on ninety eight percent of New Zealand's exports. And Prime

(00:29):
Minister Chris Luxon joins me. Now, good morning, Good morning firm.
Happy new year, Yes, Happy new Year. This has been
the culmination of a lot of hard work, hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. Look, I mean Tod McClay deserves a tremendous credit.
Todd's our Trade Minister obviously, and he's been out and
about in the world in the last twelve months doing
a huge power of work. And you know he's essentially
delivered to trade agreements in the Middle East. The one
that we're talking about today and why I'm getting up
to the UAE is very much around the UAE, and
it's a fantastic ideal that started in May and he

(01:01):
managed to negotiate and record time and a high quality agreement.
And the second one is the GCC, which is the
group of countries in the Middle eas that we've negotiated
with after eighteen years and having had it stalled for
a couple of years, he's kicked that off again in
February and resolved as well before the end of last year.
So you know, these are really important because you know,
trade is critical for New Zealand. One and four of

(01:23):
our jobs come out of trade. Companies that export and
trade pay there with US seven percent more money. We
want to get wealthier as a country in New Zealand
so that we can afford the public services like health
and education that we desperately want, and this is one
of the big ways we do that. So that's why
Todd and I said we want to double the value
of our exports in the next ten years, and being
able to do arrangements like this with really high growth

(01:45):
parts of the world is really important.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
How quickly do we see the benefits of these sorts
of agreements and treaties.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, well, look on the inside, it's incredible. It's a
very high quality deal. From day one when the agreement
comes into force, there'll be no duties on ninety eight
point five percent of all the exports that we send
to New Zealand. So if you think about it, this
is a one point three billion dollars two way relationship
today and that means that you know, our dairy products,
industrial products, our horticultural products, our red meat products, all

(02:15):
of those things that face tariffs today, which are costs
that are added on by those countries to basically reflect
on higher consumer prices into the part of the world
or make it more difficult for New Zealand exporters to
send their products to this part of the world have
been removed essentially, and that's fantastic for us. And the
other part of it is that we have a bilateral
investment treaty as well, because if you think about the

(02:37):
huge amounts of sovereign wealth that are sitting in the
Middle East and that money needs investment. We've got a
government that really wants to welcome foreign capital to New Zealand,
particularly as we accelerate our infrastructure developments, renew book energy routing,
those kinds of things, those big investment vehicles. Now having
had this investment treaty actually is a good signal and

(02:58):
a good reassurance to those investors that actually Zealand place
for them to come and spend their money.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Too, So you're heading over to witness the signatures. What's
the prime purpose of you being there.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, really to build a relationship with the President of
the UAE, so I'll have a bilateral there with him,
to meet many members of the royal family. Remembering in
that part of the world, economics and politics and investment
are all joined up, and so actually having broad relationships
across a number of the other members of the royal
family who are senior ministers as important as well, particularly

(03:29):
those big leaders of those big sovereign wealth funds. You know,
some of these sons will have seven hundred billion US
dollars to invest around the world, and yet we don't
get any of that money here in New Zealand. So
a big part of my job is to make the
case to the President but also to these other investors
about the opportunities that exist in New Zealand in the
areas of renewables, in the areas of technology, you know,

(03:50):
in other areas that they want to invest in as
well they diversify their economy. So a lot of it
is making the case for investment and the other pieces
it's other w Sustainability Week, which is a massive week
I think there's about twelve world leaders coming in for
that conference, of which I have a keynote speech to
give as well. Excellent.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Obviously Todd McClay is going to be cracking on with
some other deals. Are you confident with the progress and
making in other spaces?

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, look we are. I mean, if you think about it,
the last twelve months was about, you know, really making
sure we signaled very strongly to the rest of the
world and to our partners at New Zealander's back we're
open for business. We want to build deeper relationships with
everybody because that's how we get wealthier as a country.
So Todd has hit the ground running once it's been
out and about NASAs Judith as have I. The big
focus for me will be obviously the Middle Eastern arrangements

(04:37):
that we've got in place with a GCC deal of
the UAE deal, closing those out. Then I go to
India and likely in the first quarter, given present promise
to Modi has invited me there and I'll bring a
big delegation there because there's huge opportunity in India. We
only do about two and a half billion dollars worth
a two way trade for a country that's as bigger
than China, and China we do almost forty billion dollars

(04:58):
worth of trade work, so there's huge opportunity there for
us to work with China, with it with India, and
Todd's done a great job. He's met with his trade
counterpart seven times already in the last twelve months. I've
met a Promis several times and we've got a good
reportability in there, so that'll be a focus, and then
China in the middle of the year.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I suspect Prime Mister Chris Luxe for more from News
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