The same boost had been observed in tourism: \u201cApril 2026 saw around 8000 Indian visitors, well up on the same month in previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deal would take centre stage during Modi\u2019s visit, which will involve several events on Saturday before he departs later that night. <\/p>\n
Trade Minister Todd McClay says he is not aware of any concerns that have been raised by India. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
The FTA had been in the spotlight in recent weeks, thanks in large part to Peters who claimed National ministers were tightening the immigration settings afforded through the deal without informing the New Zealand public or India. <\/p>\n
Peters had pointed to unreleased Cabinet documents he\u2019d seen in his capacity as Foreign Minister to prove his claims. <\/p>\n
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has claimed no final decisions had been made and said she was unaware of what Peters was referring to, but insisted proper process was being followed. <\/p>\n
McClay, who had previously rubbished Peters\u2019 claims, dismissed the suggestion the FTA was discriminatory when compared to other deals. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it does is honour our obligation as negotiated in the free trade agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rejected Peters\u2019 claim of covert changes and said no concerns had been raised by India. <\/p>\n
\u201cQuestions go backwards and forwards, but nothing I\u2019m aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon reiterated his minister\u2019s comments: \u201cBoth parties [are] very happy with what we\u2019re negotiating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peters would not be in the country at the same time as Modi. The Foreign Minister left on Sunday for engagements in Singapore and Japan. He was expected to return on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Luxon said it was not unusual for the Government\u2019s Foreign Minister not to be involved in a prime ministerial visit to New Zealand, despite Luxon meeting with India\u2019s Foreign Minister when he travelled to India to meet with Modi last year. <\/p>\n
Asked if it was convenient for him that Peters was out of the country, Luxon told reporters they were \u201coverthinking it a bit\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is this is a leader-level visit. I am hosting Prime Minister Modi, reciprocating the hosting that he did for me when I went and visited India.\u201d<\/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":"The same boost had been observed in tourism: \u201cApril 2026 saw around 8000 Indian visitors, well up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8666,16426,2562,254690,3468,127,4975,122031,51500,917,2344,69063,56387,16427,6722,42677,3556,111,43,139,69,6729,16422,415,254689,312,24117,42773,584,303,6728,102,80],"class_list":["post-511961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-aware","tag-christopher","tag-claims","tag-covertly","tag-deal","tag-despite","tag-free","tag-fta","tag-happy","tag-immigration","tag-india","tag-insists","tag-isnt","tag-luxon","tag-minister","tag-ministers","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peters","tag-pm","tag-prime","tag-progression","tag-says","tag-settings","tag-tightening","tag-trade","tag-very","tag-winston","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511961","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=511961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}