New research shines light on New Zealand’s growing ties with Middle East’s Gulf states

As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits Washington, a new study is putting the spotlight on New Zealand’s own ties with major players in the Middle East’s Gulf region.

The just-completed PhD research by Geoffrey Miller at the University of Otago looks at New Zealand’s relationship with the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The PhD thesis puts a generation of ties between New Zealand and the Gulf under the microscope, beginning with a visit by then New Zealand foreign minister Phil Goff to the region in January 2001 and ending with current trade minister Todd McClay’s stepped-up engagement with the Gulf.

Geoffrey Miller, the geopolitical analyst behind the study, says New Zealand’s ties with the Gulf region are growing rapidly and are becoming more diverse.

Trade remains the bedrock of relations – the GCC bloc is now New Zealand’s sixth-biggest export market. Exports from New Zealand to the Gulf states passed the $NZ3 billion mark for the first time in the year to June 2025, according to Statistics New Zealand data.

Geoffrey Miller says: “New Zealand’s high-quality food exports are popular in the Gulf states, which have an appetite for luxury and the wealth to pay for it.

“Dairy products, meat and fruit from New Zealand often command premium prices in supermarkets in major cities across the region, such as Dubai, Doha and Riyadh.

“Food security is a major concern across the Gulf, which has no permanent rivers but houses a growing population of more than 60 million people in a hot, desert climate.”

Geoffrey Miller says new free trade deals look set to increase the export boom even further.

A new Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE entered into force in August, while New Zealand has also concluded negotiations on a wider free trade agreement (FTA) with the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council grouping.

“The CEPA deal with the United Arab Emirates is significant in its own right, because it gives New Zealand exporters virtually unlimited access to hotels and restaurants in the UAE’s key tourist and business hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

“The broader GCC FTA will expand this reach to the entire Gulf market. This includes lucrative Saudi Arabia, which has more than 35 million people and is embarking on ambitious economic growth plans under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ‘Vision 2030’ blueprint.”

Beyond trade, the study also found that New Zealand’s links with the Gulf are deepening in other areas such as aviation, education and defence.

Emirates Airline has flown more than 16 million passengers to and from New Zealand since launching its inaugural flights from Dubai to Auckland in 2003. Qatar Airways began services from Doha in 2017, meaning New Zealand now enjoys several daily direct flights to the Middle East.

In education, New Zealand was an early mover, benefiting from an influx of thousands of students from the Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia) who came to New Zealand to study in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that made US visas harder to obtain.

Below the surface, defence ties have flourished thanks to New Zealand’s participation in numerous multilateral military operations in the wider Middle East. The Gulf states have served as a hub for New Zealand’s deployments, with New Zealand troops frequently heading in and out of military bases in countries such as the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. New Zealand defence ministers are now regular visitors to the region.

Geoffrey Miller interviewed nearly 50 people across the Gulf states and New Zealand about the bilateral relationship for the PhD study, including high-profile figures such as former New Zealand foreign minister Murray McCully. The interviewees also included businesspeople, academics and senior Gulf state officials.

Geoffrey Miller also obtained hundreds of pages of previously-unreleased material about relations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other New Zealand government agencies under the Official Information Act.

More information about the study can be found in a new article published today on the Democracy Project website, which can also be republished free of charge by media.