- By Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister and MP for Botany
Our Government has just wrapped up a week-long mission in India, where we’ve strengthened economic, defence, sporting, agricultural and people-to-people ties.
The main aim of our visit was to make sufficient progress in trade talks, and I’m happy to report negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) with India are about to begin.
As a small nation at the bottom of the Pacific, trade is essential for our economic growth and prosperity.
India has a population of 1.4 billion people and is the fifth-largest economy in the world.
Signing a comprehensive FTA with India would open new markets for our exporters and turbocharge economic growth, creating more opportunities, jobs, and higher wages.
One in four Kiwi jobs rely on trade, and last year, our export revenue added $100 billion to the New Zealand economy.
Upgrading our existing trade deals and securing new ones gives us the opportunity to boost our exports and grow our economy.
The success of the Government’s trip to India was compounded by positive news back home in New Zealand, where Stats NZ announced New Zealand’s GDP grew by 0.7 per cent in the December, 2024, quarter.
Our main focus as a Government is to deliver economic growth, providing more opportunities, jobs, and higher wages to help Kiwis with the cost of living.
In the Budget we delivered tax relief for the first time in over a decade, and FamilyBoost is helping thousands of families put their kids through ECE.
Falling inflation – now at 2.2 per cent, down from 5.6 per cent when we became Government – has allowed for successive cuts to the OCR, which now sits at 3.75 per cent.
These OCR cuts, in turn, are enabling banks to slash interest rates on mortgages, meaning you can expect to see more money in your bank account if you renegotiate your mortgage.
We know there’s still more work to do, but the economic forecasts are predicting further growth in the quarters ahead, which is encouraging.
