India concludes free-trade talks with New Zealand, signs MoU
By Unnikrishnan | 23 Dec 2025
India and New Zealand on Monday announced a Free Trade Agreement that makes a majority of goods traded between the two countries duty-free, thereby expanding market access for exports from both countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon, jointly announced the historic deal during a telephone conversation after the successful conclusion of bilateral negotiations that started in March this year.
The two leaders also witnessed the exchange of MoUs during the joint press statement on the conclusion of trade talks at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on 17 March 2025.
Under the FTA, India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on 95 per cent of New Zealand’s exports to this country, or 57 per cent of that country’s exports, according to New Zealand’s minister for trade and investment Todd McClay.
New Zealand, in turn, has brought import duty on textiles, apparel, leather, footwear, marine products, gems and jewellery, handicrafts, engineering goods and automobiles. to zero, besides agreeing to invest $20 billion in India over the next 15 years.
However, the FTA excludes items like milk and dairy products, coffee, onions, sugar, spices, edible oils and rubber, in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, to ensure protection to farmers and the domestic industry.
India will allow duty-free access to sheep meat, wool, coal and nearly all of forestry and wood products imported from New Zealand.
Commerce minister Piyush Goyal said the FTA is more about people and opportunities than mere transactional and hence futuristic.
This is the third such FTA agreement that India signed after the comprehensive trade and investment agreements with the UK in July this year and with Oman last week.
The two countries also made history with the successful conclusion of a mutually beneficial free-trade agreement within a span of just 10 months.
India and New Zealand resumed trade negotiations in March this year after the earlier trade talks bogged down midway about a decade ago for want of common ground on some sensitive items.
The trade pact will be signed in the first half of next year and the two countries have agreed to a review of the agreement after one year.
Merchandise trade between the two countries stood at $1.3 billion in 2024–25 while overall trade, including trade in services, stood at $2.4 billion in 2023-24.
