The two sides are hoping to conclude the pact by the year-end, signalling an uptick in bilateral engagement.
| Photo Credit:
Oleksii Liskonih
Shaking off diplomatic ice, India and Canada on Monday began the second round of negotiations for a free trade settlement, aimed toward rising bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030. The two sides are hoping to conclude the pact by the year-end, signalling an uptick in bilateral engagement.
“The five-day talks between the two negotiating teams for the India-Canada CEPA started in New Delhi on Monday. The attempt is to fast-track talks so that the pact can be concluded by the year-end as decided by the Prime Ministers earlier this year,” an individual monitoring the assembly instructed businessline.
The assembly can be prone to set the tone for Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal’s go to to Canada later this month, heading a enterprise delegation.
The first round of negotiations for the pact, formally known as the India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), happened in March this 12 months following Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s assembly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
The summit assembly was key to the resetting of ties that had hit all-time low in 2023 when former Canadian PM Justin Trudeau accused Indian authorities of being concerned in the homicide of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
“The leaders expressed confidence that a comprehensive trade framework would serve as a durable economic anchor for the partnership and support the shared aspiration of expanding bilateral trade to CAD 70 billion / INR 4.65 lakh crore by 2030. They welcomed the finalisation and signing of the Terms of Reference for CEPA negotiations and the launch of formal negotiations and expressed their shared commitment to conclude the talks by the end of 2026,” per a joint assertion issued after Carney’s assembly with Modi in March.
India-Canada bilateral trade in items was at $8.66 billion in 2024-25, whereas India’s exports to the nation had been at $4.22 billion.
Major objects of India’s exports to Canada embody pharmaceutical merchandise, equipment components & mechanical home equipment, iron & metal articles, digital items, natural chemical substances, jewelry, gems & treasured stones, clothes & textile articles, seafood, engineering items and auto components. India’s main imports from Canada embody pulses, fertilisers (potash), mineral fuels, wooden pulp, gems & treasured stones (diamonds), plane components, equipment components, paper & paperboard and iron & aluminium scrap.
India’s important companies sector exports embody telecommunications, laptop and knowledge companies, and different enterprise companies.
Published on May 4, 2026