Trade and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will meet Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa on Monday, underscoring Canada’s push to deepen economic engagement with India as the two countries work to reach a comprehensive trade deal.
Goyal will be in Canada from Monday to Wednesday. His call with Carney on the first day of the visit is a rare case of receiving an Indian government minister at this level in Ottawa.
“The signals that are happening with Prime Minister Karni’s meeting with Minister Goyal show not only the intent but also the vision he has for Indo-Canadian relations,” Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik said.
Goyal is scheduled to hold a series of ministerial meetings in Ottawa, starting with a bilateral meeting hosted by Canadian International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu. He will also meet Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald, while additional meetings are finalized. He will be accompanied by a team of trade negotiators who will continue discussions with their Canadian counterparts on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA.
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On Tuesday, Goyal will travel to Toronto for meetings with business and industry leaders. The Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC), in collaboration with Foreign Affairs Canada, Global Affairs Canada, is organizing the Canada-India Trade and Investment Forum, which will be jointly convened by Sidhu and Goyal.
C-IBC said Goyal is leading a delegation of about 100 Indian business leaders. “This mission represents the largest trade delegation India has ever sent abroad, underscoring the growing importance of economic relations between Canada and India,” the organization said.
Patnaik said such a large trade delegation would have been unthinkable a year ago. He added: “This in itself is a success.”
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Prashant Srivastava, president of the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and Azhar Shamim, head of its research committee, wrote in an op-ed published in The Globe and Mail that the relationship has reached an inflection point. “This moment signals that the world’s most populous democracy and one of the most resource-rich G7 economies is moving decisively toward an integrated economic partnership,” they wrote.
They noted that Canadian direct and indirect investment in India exceeds C$150 billion, while bilateral trade amounts to just under C$33 billion.
When Carney met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India in March, the two leaders launched negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership and set a goal of concluding the talks by the end of the year. They also expressed hope that the agreement would help expand bilateral trade to C$70 billion by 2030.
