New Zealand presses Gulf states to finalize stalled trade deal

New Zealand is very keen to finalize stalled free trade deal with GCC. Therefore, the country is continuously pressing the six different nations of GCC and that includes most economically important nations in middle east UAE & Saudi Arabia.

The Trade Minister of New Zealand Todd McClay has visited Kuwait and UAE in this week. The main purpose of his visit is to seal the deal with GCC. At the same time, he tried to promote the deal in those countries as well. When it comes to trading partners of New Zealand GCC is considered as one of the significant of them. That is the main reason why New Zealand is so keen to promote the deal. If the deal is finalized then it is really going to help to establish a good relationship with six countries of GCC. The six countries of GCC are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain.

All the talks of the deal were wrapped up back in 2009. Though all the talks were done seven years back but the deal was never finalized. According to the trade minister of New Zealand Todd McClay, there is a fair bit of work to be done to finalize the deal. But at the same time, he is also optimistic about the deal.

If the trading relations between New Zealand and Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) is finalized then the most important items New Zealand would be transporting in the Gulf region are meat, wood, dairy and other key items. It is expected that the net worth of the trade would be around $2.16 billion annually.

As far the deal is concerned one of the most important nations in GCC has already agreed to the deal. Saudi Arabia is considered as one of the most important nations of GCC. Therefore, the rest of the process to finalize the deal would be much easy.