\u201cWe are taking the two countries\u2019 relationship to the next level with our New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement, signed in April, which will deliver more jobs, higher exports and stronger economic growth for New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon said he expected to discuss with Modi several topics including \u201ctrade and investment, maritime security, education, technology, tourism, sport, and global issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will also be celebrating the people-to-people connections between our two countries, with Kiwi-Indians comprising around 6% of New Zealand\u2019s population and making a significant contribution to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
It had been speculated for months, particularly within New Zealand\u2019s Indian communities, that Modi would visit. Luxon had refused to confirm or deny a visit until today.<\/p>\n
Debate over the free trade agreement will be a feature of the visit. The Government introduced legislation needed to implement the deal in the House this week.<\/p>\n
Peters, also the New Zealand First leader, had long railed against the deal, initially concerned about the extent to which it allowed Indian migrants to bring their families into the country.<\/p>\n
He has since claimed National ministers had pivoted to tighten immigration settings without telling India.<\/p>\n
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has claimed no final decisions had been made and maintained she didn\u2019t know what Peters was referring to.<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the deputy political editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s press gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are taking the two countries\u2019 relationship to the next level with our New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1443,534,16426,57374,13242,4101,1888,122031,68879,5501,16427,5812,6722,147047,147330,91421,111,43,139,69,5908,16422,415,9871,9863,23939,1533,80],"class_list":["post-507362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-about","tag-amid","tag-christopher","tag-confirming","tag-confirms","tag-debate","tag-first","tag-fta","tag-impending","tag-indian","tag-luxon","tag-make","tag-minister","tag-modi","tag-modis","tag-narendra","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-official","tag-pm","tag-prime","tag-speculation","tag-visit","tag-widespread","tag-will","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}