India Unlocked Episode 5: Trade and Investment Opportunities in Maharashtra
When the Auckland Business Chamber, Deloitte and the Consulate General of India in Auckland surveyed New Zealand businesses earlier this year, one finding stood out clearly: understanding India’s individual states remains one of the biggest barriers to doing business successfully.
That’s why we created India Unlocked—a state-by-state event series designed to help New Zealand businesses better understand where the opportunities are, what makes each state unique, and how to engage successfully. For the fifth episode of this series, we focus on Maharashtra.
Maharashtra is India’s largest state economy, worth roughly US$580 billion in 2026-27 and contributing close to 14% of national GDP on its own. It’s also the country’s most industrialised state, accounting for a fifth of India’s industrial output, and has drawn more foreign direct investment than any other state: over US$107 billion cumulatively since October 2019. Mumbai anchors that scale as India’s financial capital, home to both the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges, while the wider Mumbai-Pune corridor pairs deep capital markets with strong auto and IT manufacturing bases. On logistics, the September 2025 opening of the Bharat Mumbai Container Terminal at JNPT gave Maharashtra the largest container handling capacity of any Indian port, at 10 million TEUs a year.
Hear directly from a panel including India’s Consul General in Auckland and Auckland-based leaders with firsthand experience in Maharashtra, on the state’s business environment, key industries and practical advice for New Zealand businesses looking to expand there.
