FIT Partnership Ministerial Meeting – November 2025
FIT Partnership Ministers met in person for the first time on 18 November 2025, in Singapore.
During the meeting, the FIT Partnership welcomed new member countries Paraguay and Malaysia, joining existing members Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay. This brings the membership of the FIT Partnership to 16 countries.
During the meeting:
- Ministers from Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay issued a Ministerial Declaration on Supply Chain Resilience [PDF, 179 KB] to enhance cooperation and coordination to identify or mitigate ongoing or imminent major supply chain risks and disruptions of shared concerns. This will allow swifter and more meaningful responses to major supply chain risks and disruptions. The FIT Partnership will build on this declaration to further strengthen cooperation and coordination on issues relating to supply chain resilience.
- Ministers launched a workstream to advance digital and paperless trade. The workstream will promote the adoption of international standards and legislation, to facilitate the use and exchange of digital trade documentation.
- Ministers launched a workstream on strengthening the rules-based trading system. The workstream will incubate solutions on contemporary trade challenges and be a pathfinder for reform to existing trade structures.
- Ministers launched a new workstream on leveraging technology to address current challenges in trade. This initiative will provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) specialising in trade technology with the opportunity to test and refine their innovative solutions for scale-up.
Background to the FIT Partnership
The FIT Partnership is a new international initiative designed to address emerging trade issues, generate trade and investment opportunities amongst members, and to help foster economic growth and security.
It was launched on 16 September 2025 by fourteen founding members – Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay – all small-medium sized trading nations, for whom fair and open trade is vital to prosperity and growth.
The FIT-Partnership will provide a platform for participating members to develop, pilot and run projects that advance fair and open trade, and come up with solutions to real world barriers, with a particular focus on the following priority areas:
- Supply chain resilience;
- Investment facilitation;
- Non-tariff barriers and trade facilitation; and
- The adoption and integration of trade technologies.
As a mechanism for collaboration and practical action –the FIT Partnership does not currently contain any binding rules or market access provisions.
News and Resources
For more information, please see:
- Joint Press Release on the Inaugural FIT Partnership Ministerial Meeting
- The Future of Investment and Trade Partnership Ministerial Declaration [PDF, 185 KB]
- Press Release – Launch of the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership(external link)
Share your views
We welcome any views or feedback on the FIT-Partnership. Please get in touch by email at FITPartnershipNZ@mfat.govt.nz