New Zealand’s forest and wood products sector has secured its place in the trade pillar of the new India-New Zealand Strategic Partnership, endorsed by Prime Ministers Christopher Luxon and Narendra Modi at Government House in Auckland on Saturday during the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 40 years. That is according to the Roadmap to 2030 issued by both governments, which sets a course to double bilateral trade to $7 billion and commits ministers to bring the recently signed Free Trade Agreement into force as quickly as possible.
“This is a major step in the relationship between New Zealand and India,” Luxon said, with the New Zealand prime minister arguing the agenda backs a shared ambition for the two countries to do more together across trade, defence and the Indo-Pacific.
The roadmap lists forestry alongside horticulture, dairying and animal husbandry among sectors marked for deeper collaboration under its trade and economic pillar, which also commits both governments to closer customs cooperation and early FTA implementation. Regular prime ministerial meetings and a Secretary-level review mechanism between the two foreign ministries will carry the agenda beyond leadership visits.
“India is not just a market. It is a launchpad for global growth,” Modi told business leaders in Auckland, welcoming New Zealand’s commitment to invest $20 billion in India over the next 15 years and inviting Kiwi companies into manufacturing, infrastructure, clean energy and urban development.
The endorsement follows the 27 April signing of the Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, which scraps tariffs on more than 95 per cent of New Zealand wood and forestry exports from the day the deal enters into force. Indian duties of between 5.5 and 11 per cent still apply to most wood lines, with almost all remaining tariffs set to be phased out over seven years.
It comes as New Zealand sawmills report a rise in Indian buyer enquiries in the weeks since the Delhi signing, in a trade that collapsed from a $326 million radiata pine peak in 2019 to just $9.5 million by 2023 before recovering to $76.5 million. India imports 85 per cent of its softwood, with demand growing at 11 per cent annually, and the market is projected to reach $1.06 billion by 2032.
Neither financial commitments nor legally binding obligations attach to the roadmap, which instead embeds cooperation in annual maritime security dialogues, a Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism and 18 announced outcomes spanning 10 agreements and eight policy initiatives. New Zealand also confirmed its decision to join the Global Biofuels Alliance, folding clean energy into the wider agenda.
Wood and wooden products remain New Zealand’s largest agricultural export to India, a base, Todd McClay, New Zealand’s Trade, Investment, Agriculture and Forestry Minister, has previously said he wants to grow into higher-value engineered wood products.
