The deal is signed, but the work started long ago
Narendra Modi’s visit to New Zealand on 10-11 July 2026 put the NZ-India free trade agreement back under the spotlight, with both sides talking up a target to roughly double two-way trade from about $2.4 billion to $5 billion within five years of the deal taking effect. The agreement was signed on 27 April 2026 and government modelling assumes it enters into force from 1 January 2027.
But the companies best positioned to cash in did not wait for a signature. Rakon, Valocity, Serko and Gallagher Security have been doing the India deal for years, in some cases decades, while the politicians were still clearing their throats.
Rakon’s India story is 18 years old
The standout example is Rakon, the New Zealand-founded maker of frequency control products. Chief executive Sinan Altug told the NZ Herald that “India is not an outsourcing story for us. It is a strategic story that started all the way back in 2008”.
Rakon formed a joint venture with Bangalore-based Centum Electronics in 2008, converting it to a fully owned subsidiary, Rakon India, in 2018. That is a partnership built and matured well before free trade was on anyone’s agenda, and it puts Rakon inside India’s institutional supply chains rather than knocking on the door from Auckland.
Valocity rebuilt its entire platform for India
Property data firm Valocity offers the most honest briefing on what Indian market entry actually costs. The company developed a phone app that speeds up bank property valuations, geotagging addresses, timestamping photos and requiring valuers to take a selfie proving they were on site. It works offline, because mobile coverage cannot be assumed. It now has 20 large banks live on the platform.
The catch is what it took to get there. Valocity had to localise from scratch after discovering India lacked accurate addressing data, had undigitised government records and no standardised property pricing. Valuation was manual and took weeks. This is the reality behind the FTA’s marketing: the door opening does not build the product for you.
The numbers behind the door
The agreement itself is genuinely substantial. Two-way trade sat at NZ$3.68 billion in the year to June 2025, with India NZ’s 12th-largest export market. The deal reduces or eliminates tariffs on 95% of the current value of NZ exports, replacing tariffs that ran 30-60% on most goods and up to 150% on wine. India’s middle class, 435 million now and projected past 715 million within five years, is the prize.
Official modelling puts NZ GDP $135 million higher in 2027 and $657.7 million higher by 2050, with exports to India up 16.3% in the first year. And the momentum is already showing: apple volumes are up 63% since negotiations began, from 27,000 tonnes to 45,000, lifting India from NZ’s seventh-largest apple market to fourth in two years.
Every month of delay is a month paying tariffs
The commercial urgency is real. ExportNZ and BusinessNZ warned the select committee in May 2026 that “delays in ratification risk eroding New Zealand’s competitive position”, noting that most favoured nation clauses and staged tariff cuts mean timing has direct commercial consequences. With roughly one in four NZ jobs tied to exports, and goods exports already running at $81.0 billion annually, the political timetable is not an abstraction.
India is a country of countries
The honest counterweight is that access alone guarantees nothing. Academic commentary has argued the “happy headline of ‘1.4 billion potential customers’ is largely a fiction”, describing India as a country of countries needing a separate strategy for each of its 36 states and union territories. NZTE’s Graham Rouse has made the same point from a practitioner’s view, warning that “one of the biggest misconceptions about India is that market access alone is enough”.
That is exactly why Rakon, Valocity, Serko and Gallagher matter. They prove the opportunity is real and that it is won through years of localisation, partnership and patience, not a signing ceremony. The FTA is a genuine win worth having. But for the businesses now eyeing India off the back of the headlines, the message from the firms already there is that the agreement is the starting line, not the finish.
Sources
- The Kiwi firms leading a new wave of New Zealand tech in India (2026-07-11)
- Modi’s New Zealand visit puts the India trade deal back in the spotlight as exporters weigh the gains (2026-07-11)
- NZ-India FTA already boosting exports (2026-04)
- ExportNZ and BusinessNZ Submission to Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Select Committee on the NZ-India FTA (2026-05)
- New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement Summary (2025-12-22)
- Economic Impact Assessment of the New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement (2025-12-22)
- Overseas merchandise trade: March 2026 (2026-05)
- India trade deal opens major opportunities for New Zealand exporters – Graham Rouse
- Valocity’s app speeds up property valuation in India
- India is a ‘country of countries’ – NZ business needs a regional strategy to make the trade deal work