by Ryan Henderson

NZ has just signed an FTA that makes us train and bankroll India’s apple and kiwifruit industries, so they can crush out our own growers.

Zespri, our fruit growers, scientists and MPI all forced to help their competitors.

And India can shut down our market access shut if we don’t jump fast enough.

Absolute madness.

Apple Action Plan:

We’re setting up “high-density Apples Centres of Excellence” in India. Helping them with plant variety rights, IP for the best cultivars, packhouses, cold chains, food safety etc.

Helping them to commercialize.

The Kiwifruit Action Plan does the same (para 4):

Centres of Excellence under India's Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture, supplying quality planting material, technical expertise transfer, and full supply-chain integration support.

And it's not optional.

Annex 2B paragraph 9 lets India suspend NZ's apple and kiwifruit market access “in whole or in part” if it judges we can't fulfil our obligations under these Action Plans.

India is the judge, jury and executioner of New Zealand industry.

Article 14.13 excludes the chapter from dispute settlement, so NZ can't challenge an unfair finding. And annex 2B para 4 confirms this transfer doesn't count towards NZ's separate US$20 billion outward-FDI target under chapter 9. We pay twice.

Originally published on Ryan Henderson on X.