The Prime Minister remains confident a free trade agreement with India can still be struck this term, ahead of his first face-to-face bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Christopher Luxon is in Laos for the East Asia Summit, and is set to meet with Modi later on Thursday evening.
National campaigned on securing a FTA with India in its first term. Since coming to office, Trade Minister Todd McClay has visited India three times and met with India's trade minister Shri Piyush Goyal six times. Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has also visited India, and New Zealand has hosted Droupadi Murmu.
While Luxon has spoken to Modi over the phone, he said the face-to-face meeting will be a good opportunity to deepen the relationship further.
Photo: RNZ / Craig McCulloch
Luxon had planned to visit India in the last quarter of this year, but with other trips like CHOGM and APEC coming up, and Modi's G7 commitments, the trip was not logistically possible.
Instead, his meeting with Modi in Vientiane would lay the groundwork for a visit next year.
"It's a chance for us to have an in-face meeting here, with a view that in the first half of next year we take a delegation to India to talk about more of the opportunities that exist between the two great countries and how we can deepen that relationship and partnership," he said.
A sticking point to any deal would be dairy. India is unlikely to be open to including dairy in any agreement. Luxon said he "would not presuppose" what would be in the negotiations.
"Once we have a foundation of a relationship, then we can start to progress the more transactional conversations around trade, and also around security," he said.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: AFP
He believed New Zealand had not had a presence in India in recent years, leading to trade going down.
"What I want to do is build back a relationship, because they are a key player within the Indo-Pacific region."
Luxon is also set to meet with his Canadian and Australian counterparts Justin Trudeau and Anthony Albanese for a CANZ meeting later this afternoon.
He said partnering with like-minded countries like Canada and Australia was a way to "amplify" New Zealand's voice on global and regional issues.
The countries have shared statements together on matters they were aligned on, such as Gaza.
"We've had three statements that we've talked about with respect to the Middle East to try and put a more collective voice and weight to our position, which is we want a ceasefire, we want de-escalation, we want restraint, we want a two-state solution. We've tried to reiterate that time and time again. I think there's power in doing it as a threesome, rather than just doing it on our own," he said.
He would not say whether a statement would come out of his meeting with Trudeau and Albanese in Laos.
Luxon said he would meet informally with other East Asia Summit leaders while attending the formal gala dinner on Thursday evening.