India, New Zealand Elevate Ties to Strategic Partnership, Set 2030 Roadmap

India and New Zealand have elevated their bilateral ties to a Strategic Partnership and announced an India-New Zealand Strategic Partnership and Roadmap to 2030 during the official visit of the Prime Minister to New Zealand. The roadmap aims to guide structured cooperation across trade, defence, maritime security, tourism, culture, sports, agri-tech, people-to-people ties, Indo-Pacific priorities and multilateral issues over the next four years.

The two countries set a target to double bilateral trade to NZ$7 billion or ₹35,000 crore by 2030 to strengthen economic ties and expand market access in the context of the Free Trade Agreement. They also agreed to establish a Maritime Security Dialogue to improve cooperation, coordination and information exchange.

New Zealand nominated maritime security as a priority pillar under the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). Under this framework, both sides will undertake cooperation activities focused on combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. New Zealand also joined the Global Biofuels Alliance to support international cooperation for the development and adoption of sustainable biofuels.

Several agreements were signed to expand cooperation in defence, disaster management, agriculture, tourism, sports, culture and science. These include a Memorandum of Arrangement on Maritime Cooperation between the Ministry of Defence of India and the New Zealand Defence Force, cooperation on hydrography and nautical cartography, mutual logistics support, and a Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism.

India and New Zealand also signed agreements between the National Disaster Management Authority of India and the National Emergency Management Agency of New Zealand, along with cooperation in animal husbandry and dairying, tourism, sports, maritime heritage and cultural exchanges. The two countries will collaborate on projects including the development of the National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC), Lothal at Gujarat between NMHC and the New Zealand Maritime Museum.

The partnership also includes the launch of the Kiwifruit Action Plan and establishment of two Centres of Excellence for Kiwifruit in Nagaland and Uttarakhand. Additional cooperation agreements were announced between the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and between the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kundli (NIFTEM-K) and Massey University, New Zealand, covering research, academic exchange, student mobility and capacity building.