"India very important to us": New Zealand's Deputy PM Winston Peters on bilateral visit

New Delhi [India], March 13 : New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, who is on an official visit to India, emphasized the significance of India to his country and highlighted the importance of the meetings for strengthening bilateral relations.
Describing his ongoing visit, Deputy PM Winston Peters mentioned his prior visit to Gujarat and his current meetings with key ministers in Delhi.
"Well, it's been very important, very interesting. We think we're making a lot of progress. We went to Gujarat first and now we're in Delhi and talking to key ministers like the Minister for Foreign Affairs here, somebody I've known for some time. So yeah, it's very important. India is very important to us. The meetings are very important to us too," he said.
During his visit to Delhi, Deputy PM Peters also attended the Women's Premier League (WPL) match between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Expressing his excitement about women's cricket in India, he remarked, "It's tremendous to see how popular women's cricket is. This is new, but it's happening fast. And I'm here to watch a New Zealander, Divine, score a century today. But of course, you don't have to score a century because you're not chasing that many," he added.
On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Deputy PM Winston Peters, expressing anticipation for 'productive talks.'
New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters arrived in New Delhi on Monday evening.
He is on an official visit to India from March 10 to 13 at the invitation of External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
According to MEA, this visit marks Deputy PM Peters' first visit to India since the new government in New Zealand assumed office in November 2023. His previous visit to India was in February 2020.
Commencing his visit, Peters arrived in Gujarat's Ahmedabad on Sunday night.
India and New Zealand share warm and friendly relations based on the commonalities of democratic traditions and shared values bolstered by strong people-to-people ties.
The two countries are engaging in cooperation across a wide range of areas, including trade and economy, defence and security, education and research, and environment and climate change, the MEA release concluded.
Bilateral relations were established in 1952 between India and New Zealand. New Zealand has identified India as a priority country in its "Opening Doors to India" policy notified in October 2011, which was reiterated by New Zealand in 2015.