Trade talks with India on hold
NZPA | Thursday July 9 2009
Trade talks with India on hold
The start of free trade talks with India has been delayed following a change in India’s commerce minister since elections in May.
Trade Minister Tim Groser expected negotiations would be able to start before the end of the year. Preliminary talks were to have been held this month.
Mr Groser told The Dominion Post he had spoken several times with the new minister, Anand Sharma, since his appointment.
"My impression is that it’s still completely on track and I’m hoping that some time in the second half of this year we will proceed. They’ve just got their government in place, and I would suspect that paperwork related to the India-NZ FTA is probably not high up there in their priorities.
Mr Groser said the negotiations would be long.
