India, New Zealand sign ‘historic’ trade deal

BILATERAL – INDIA-OCEANIA

28 APRIL 2026

• India and New Zealand signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that Prime Ministers of both the countries hailed as a “historic” step towards deepening trade, investment, and people-to-people ties.
• The FTA will see New Zealand removing tariffs on all goods imported from India, while India will remove or reduce tariffs on 95% of current imports from New Zealand.
• Apart from the tariff concessions, the FTA also includes several provisions relating to mobility of working professionals and students from India.
• The FTA includes a provision wherein New Zealand has committed to facilitate $20 billion in investments into India over the next 15 years.
• India has managed to negotiate the exclusion of several key items from the deal, including all dairy products such as milk, cream, whey, yoghurt, cheese, etc., animal products other than sheep meat, vegetable products such as onions, chana, peas, corn, almonds, etc., sugar, artificial honey, animal, vegetable or microbial fats and oils, arms and ammunition, gems and jewellery, and copper and aluminium products.
• The FTA, discussions for which were announced in March 2025 and concluded in December 2025, is one of the fastest India has negotiated.
• The deal still needs to be ratified by New Zealand’s Parliament.
• India’s exports to New Zealand grew 32.1% in 2024-25 to $711.1 million, the latest full financial year for which data is available.
• Imports from New Zealand grew 75.2% to $587.1 million over the same period.