Sporting chance for more trade

By RUTH BERRY

If Helen Clark's visit to India was at times marred by political hiccups, she left confident a platform had been laid for more solid links with the increasingly powerful nation.

Not that, as she pointed out in a speech to commerce leaders in Delhi, New Zealand was starting with a "blank sheet of paper".

The countries' joint historical links with the British Empire has left them both with the use of the English language and common parliamentary and legal systems.

A mutual love of cricket, which she noted was the most raised subject on the trip, and the footprints left by some of New Zealand's giants - Richard Hadlee, Sir Edmund Hillary and former Prime Minister David Lange - have also served to forge bonds. Not to mention John Wright, now coach of the Indian cricket team.

And Indians have been migrating to New Zealand since the 19th century. At more than 60,000 in the last Census account, after the Chinese, they are New Zealand's second largest Asian population.

Despite an enduring warmth, political, trade and business relationships have not fired and the country is only New Zealand's 26th biggest trading partner.

When Lange embarked on the last state visit by a New Zealand Prime Minister in 1985, trade was worth some $99 million each way. Today it has not even doubled.

By comparison, much greater energy has been pumped into our relationship with China, with a concomitant surge in trade. Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff says there are obvious reasons New Zealand has directed more attention to China, but he believes that is changing.

"There has been reform in India. It's now more globalised, more outward-looking, less regulated and protected and we imagine this will be an on-going factor."

India's new Look East policy and Asean involvement is another, mirrored by New Zealand's wish not to be left out of the burgeoning Asian power bloc.

Lange, a declared devotee of the country, says India's new approach to foreign relations reminds him of China when it "decided it was going to boom. China did remarkable things in terms of its economy at the same time as they put their heads down internationally. They stopped picking fights with various people and they got stuck in."

At least partly for this reason he believes India is now serious about taking a constructive approach to its relationship with Pakistan, with which it was on the brink of nuclear war in 2002.

That issue remains hugely problematic and tension over New Zealand's views on it, particularly because of the two countries' nuclear capabilities, erupted before Helen Clark had left India.

A small article in the Hindustan Times misquoted the Prime Minister, suggesting she would take a strident approach to expressing New Zealand's views. She moved immediately to refute the article but tension simmered over suggestions in it she had been influenced by Pakistani-born MP Ashraf Choudhary.

Questions raised over whether Indian High Commissioner Harish Dogra, who accompanied the New Zealand delegation on the trip, had played a role in promulgating the Choudhary line moved the incident into a more serious political realm. If Dogra had, was he acting independently?

Perhaps fuelling the tension, Choudhary told the Weekend Herald in Delhi this week, he believed India's External Affairs (the equivalent to Foreign Affairs) may have been behind the story. "I have nothing to back it up. It's just my personal view."

Choudhary, who Helen Clark introduced to the commerce leaders not as a Pakistani MP, but as our "first ever MP from Southeast Asia" has a personal interest in Kashmir. While he has lived here for 28 years, his family in Pakistan lives in Sialkot, several kilometres from the border.

Whether or not the Indian Government was privately particularly sensitive about New Zealand's nuclear stance, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this week it would not deter bridge-building between the two countries."We have a close, very cordial relationship with New Zealand.

"There is great scope to give it more solid content and I hope this visit will facilitate this process," he said.

While Helen Clark urged a reduction in trade tariffs which impede significant agricultural and forestry exports, the Government accepts there is little hope of immediate progress. Instead it is focusing on boosting the number of Indian tourists and students here, and in recapturing the interest of Bollywood film-makers.

Niche-marketing opportunities for New Zealand businesses in IT are a particular focus and the business delegation accompanying Helen Clark on the trip was from the information and communications technology sector.

Indian companies have so far been more active in New Zealand than vice versa.

"But India's rapid development as a service-driven society and market opens up opportunities to transfer proven technology applications from the New Zealand public and private sector into New Zealand," the Prime Minister said.

The pitch is that New Zealand has innovative ideas, but needs partners with big markets and the cash they provide to effectively grow their businesses.

Lord of the Rings and its animation wizardry and Ian Taylor's Animation Research Ltd company, which revolutionised America's Cup and other sports' television coverage, are touted as examples.

Taylor agreed to join the delegation from Europe at the last minute and was already negotiating a deal with Indian cricket heads to sell them a 3D package allowing them to analyse their players' every move.

Like a number of the other business people, he was blown away by meetings with business mover and shakers in India.

"I'm embarrassed to say this, but I thought I was coming to a third world country."

He's found some companies "mindboggling in their style and sophistication".

Of course the group had the benefit of the best of calling cards, with the Prime Minister providing them with the type of top-level entry which can otherwise prove elusive.

Keith Phillips, chairman of Cadmus Payment Solutions which runs New Zealand's biggest Eftpos business, says Asian markets tend to be hierarchical and it's easy "to spend a lot of time dealing with the wrong people".

Clark's presence short-circuited that process. Like a number of the business delegation he is impressed with her ability to facilitate dialogue and her grasp of IT.

But if the business team were happy with the entree Clark provided they were less happy with the media and their anger was not restricted to the Hindustan Times, one of the few Indian papers to mark Clark's visit by more than just the occasional photograph.

The business members of the delegation were appalled New Zealand media accompanying Clark spent time asking questions about her embattled Cabinet Minister John Tamihere and nuclear tensions when they could have been writing about business opportunities.

When a public relations woman at an Indian conglomerate mistakenly told the media her company made nuclear weapons, journalists began asking whether the company supported the Indian Government's nuclear weapons programme. One business delegate rang TVNZ telling it not to report what happened and he and colleagues claimed the coverage amounted to treason.

New Zealand's Indian business community is likely to help provide a critical link between the countries' markets, as will Indian employees in New Zealand businesses. Aside from Choudhary, New Zealand's Chief Ombudsman Anand Satyanand and Chief Family Commissioner Rajen Prasad were also part of the delegation, representing members of the India diaspora only recently actively embraced by the Indian Government.

Prasad, born and raised in Fiji as the grandchild of indentured labourers brought there, says this occurred after that Government did its homework and realised much of the success of the Chinese economic revolution could be attributed to the contribution of Chinese living abroad.

Looking at the 20 million Indians living overseas, the Indian Government which had ignored those who had left, realised "they had to change their signal".

On a nation-to-nation level the task of generating cross-country interest will largely lie with New Zealand.

Helen Clark acknowledged as much when, referring to India and New Zealand as the bookends of Asia in Dehli, she added "although I don't know that we weigh the same".