 "India and New Zealand sign MoU")
India and New Zealand will work together to better cooperate on civil aviation by scheduling new routes, codeshare services, traffic rights, and capacity entitlement.
Both countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday to make the partnership official. Rajiv Bansal, secretary at the Ministry of Civil Aviation and David Pine, the New Zealand High Commissioner, signed the document in the presence of Jyotiraditya M Scindia, the Minister for Civil Aviation of India and Damien O'Connor, the Minister for Trade and Export Growth, Agriculture, Biosecurity, Land Information, and Rural Communities of New Zealand.
Earlier, the two countries had signed an air services agreement in Auckland in May 2016. The MoU signed today aims to boost further the bilateral ties in civil aviation between the two countries.
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According to the new partnership, designated airlines from New Zealand may operate any number of services with any type of aircraft, with third and fourth freedom traffic rights. This can happen at six points in India: New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
Similarly, the designated airlines of India may operate any number of services with any type of aircraft with third and fourth freedom traffic rights to & and from Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch in New Zealand. Three more points remain to be named by the government of India.
Moreover, the designated airlines from both countries may also operate "any number of all-cargo services with any type of aircraft with third, fourth and fifth freedom traffic rights to/from any points in the territory of the other party via any intermediate point(s) and to any beyond point(s) regardless of the points specified in the route schedule," as stated in the civil aviation ministry's official release.
Jyotiraditya Scindia commented on the partnership: "We have signed an MoU that has opened the possibilities of furthering air transport between our two countries. The open sky policy has been put in place. The point of calls has been increased. We have also increased intermediate points."
The two nations are discussing introducing the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system in New Zealand. This would go a long way in promoting ease of business, trade and tourism between the countries.
These issues were discussed during a bilateral meeting between Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Damien O'Connor on Monday.
The UAE, Bhutan and Nepal have already adopted the UPI payment system.
