The kiwi fruit in your nearest supermarket are not about to get cheaper just yet. But the enhanced partnership and the upgraded free trade agreement that Singapore and New Zealand signed yesterday are attempts at upholding good practices at a time when the global trading system is fraying.

As the world's two largest economies, the United States and China, slap tit-for-tat trade restrictions on each other and choose a transactional approach over World Trade Organisation (WTO) mechanisms to resolve disputes in their relationship, the two small and like-minded nations of New Zealand and Singapore can "model" the benefits of free and rules-based trade, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told The Straits Times yesterday.