New Delhi: The Chief of the Royal New Zealand Navy, Rear Admiral David Proctor, was accorded a Guard of Honour in Delhi on Tuesday.

Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Hari Kumar, received Rear Admiral David Proctor at the South Block. The two naval officers shook hands and greeted each other.

Earlier, Admiral David Proctor laid a wreath at the National War Memorial in Delhi and paid respects to the fallen soldiers.

Notably, bilateral relations between India and New Zealand were established in 1952. The two nations have cordial and friendly relations rooted in the linkages of Commonwealth, parliamentary democracy and the English language, according to Ministry of External Affairs. In 2011, New Zealand identified India as a priority country in its "Opening Doors to India" policy, which was reiterated by New Zealand in 2015.

On February 13, New Zealand's High Commissioner to India, David Pines said that both nations are working to address the trade barriers and find ways to stimulate the demands.

The bilateral trade between India and New Zealand stood at USD 1 billion in 2022-23. India is New Zealand's 11th largest trading partner.

Speaking to ANI, Pine stated that the governments of both nations feel "a lot better could be done," highlighting that the current focus is on bringing together the business groups of two countries so that they can identify the opportunity for trade.

"Trade in goods between the two countries is still pretty low. It's about a billion dollars a year in both directions. And both governments often feel that we could be doing a lot better. So the first thing we are really focusing on is actually getting the business groups talking to each other. So getting them together into more regular habits of dialogue," he said.

When asked what is being done to remove the trade barriers, he said, "We've done a lot of work on regulations that were affecting our exports of logs to India, making sure that India's very legitimate concerns that wood come to you without introducing the pests and making sure those."

"We have done similar work to allow Indian mangoes to be expected or exported to New Zealand, which I'm pretty happy about when I go home. I'll be able to have nice things," he added.

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