Trade agreements are easy to announce but much harder to measure. If New Zealand has committed itself to a long-term partnership with India, shouldn't taxpayers also be told whether that partnership is actually delivering what was promised?
The signing ceremony is over.
The speeches have been made. Hands have been shaken, photographs taken and another chapter added to New Zealand's long history of free trade agreements.
Now comes the difficult part.
How will we know if it works?
That question has received surprisingly little attention during discussion surrounding New Zealand's India Free Trade Agreement and the recently announced Strategic Partnership. Political leaders understandably focus on opportunity and optimism, but far less time is spent explaining how success will actually be measured over the coming decade.
Trade agreements are not an end in themselves. They are tools designed to improve prosperity, create opportunities and strengthen relationships. Like any significant public policy, they should ultimately be judged by outcomes rather than expectations.
That raises a simple but important question.
Where is New Zealand's scoreboard?
If this agreement is expected to reshape trade, investment and strategic cooperation between New Zealand and India, surely the public deserves to see whether those ambitions are being achieved. Imagine if every six or twelve months the Government published a straightforward report card. Not political commentary or promotional material, but a transparent set of measurable facts showing how the agreement was progressing.
Trade itself should be one of the easiest areas to measure. Has bilateral trade increased? Are New Zealand exporters genuinely finding new opportunities in India, or are imports growing more quickly than exports? Has the agreement improved New Zealand's trade balance, or has it simply increased the overall volume of goods moving between the two countries? These are questions that can be answered with publicly available data.
Investment deserves similar scrutiny. Has investment flowed in both directions? How many New Zealand companies have established operations in India since the agreement was signed? How much new Indian investment has entered New Zealand, and which industries have benefited? If investment was presented as one of the major opportunities arising from the agreement, then it should also become one of the major measures of its success.
The same applies to business participation. How many New Zealand companies are actively using the agreement? Which sectors have secured new export opportunities? Have small and medium-sized businesses benefited, or are the advantages flowing mainly to larger corporations with existing international networks?
Earlier reporting by elocal examined provisions within the agreement covering agricultural cooperation, horticultural research, livestock genetics, plant variety rights and the establishment of New Zealand-supported Centres of Excellence in India. Those commitments attracted considerable public interest, yet little has been said about how their progress will be monitored.
Have those projects commenced? Have milestones been reached? What practical outcomes have emerged for New Zealand growers, researchers and exporters? These are precisely the kinds of questions that deserve regular public reporting.
The newly announced Roadmap to 2030 broadens the relationship even further. Maritime security, defence cooperation, cyber security, education, tourism and technology now sit alongside trade as priorities for both governments. Again, success should not be measured simply by the number of meetings held or memoranda signed. It should be measured by tangible outcomes that New Zealanders can understand and evaluate.
There is also a broader conversation that sits alongside the agreement itself.
Trade policy rarely exists in isolation. It intersects with immigration settings, labour markets, infrastructure planning, housing demand, education and long-term economic productivity. As implementation unfolds, New Zealanders will naturally ask whether population growth can be supported by existing infrastructure, whether migration is addressing genuine skill shortages, whether productivity is increasing and whether the economic gains are flowing through to workers, businesses and regional communities.
These are not arguments against immigration, nor are they arguments against free trade. They are simply questions that any responsible government should expect citizens to ask when entering long-term international agreements.
Perhaps the most important question, however, is also the simplest.
Who owns the scoreboard?
If the India Free Trade Agreement fails to deliver the outcomes promised, who is ultimately accountable?
Governments negotiate treaties on behalf of the country, but once the signing ceremony is over responsibility can become less clear. Does accountability remain with the Government that negotiated the agreement? Does it pass to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as the agency responsible for implementation? Should Parliament conduct regular reviews, or should independent economists assess whether the agreement is meeting its objectives?
Most importantly, how are New Zealanders expected to judge success if there is no agreed public measure of what success actually looks like?
One possible solution would be refreshingly simple. Imagine a publicly accessible dashboard, updated every six or twelve months, tracking the agreement's performance. It could report on bilateral trade growth, export volumes, investment flows, business participation, agricultural cooperation projects, technology partnerships, maritime initiatives and educational exchanges. Rather than asking the public to rely on political assurances, the evidence would speak for itself.
That approach would strengthen confidence rather than weaken it. If the agreement succeeds, the results would be visible. If challenges emerge, they could be identified early and addressed openly. Transparency should never be seen as a threat to good public policy. In fact, it is one of its strongest foundations.
The India Free Trade Agreement has the potential to become one of New Zealand's most significant international partnerships. If that proves to be the case, it deserves more than headlines celebrating its signing. It deserves careful measurement, regular reporting and ongoing public scrutiny.
After all, trade agreements should not be remembered because of the day they were signed.
They should be remembered because of what they delivered.
And if New Zealanders are expected to place their trust in agreements negotiated on their behalf, they should also be given the information needed to judge whether those agreements are fulfilling their promise.