NEW DELHI: Negotiations for a trade agreement between India and Canada is set to pick up pace as the slowdown-hit country looks for a speedy revival, said Andrew Smith, Minister (Commercial), High Commission of Canada in India. Speaking to Express, Smith said, the two nations are in discussion for enhancing bilateral trade for over a decade now.
In 2019, however, the talks were put on the back-burner as India became very ambitious with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) - the biggest regional trade partnership, the world could have seen.
“Now that RCEP has ended, for the time being, the two nations are likely to begin negotiations but chances of finalisation of trade agreement don’t seem to take place soon," he said. However, bilateral trade is growing rapidly. Two-way trade between the two nations grew by 61 per cent in the last five years to USD 9.4 billion and “we are on track for another 15 per cent increase to reach USD 10.5 billion this year,” Smith said, adding the aim is to double it and take it to USD 25 billion in the next five years.
Admitting that trade is relatively low when compared to the size of each of our economies, he pointed out Canadian investments into India has been booming having reached almost USD 50 billion in the last five years and “we believe trade will follow investment soon”.
Nearly 2,000 Canadian companies are currently doing business in India and the government is working to bring the next set of companies to invest in the country. Under BRAND CANADA initiative, Canadian companies will travel to ten cities between January-March 2020, in an effort to bring both countries closer through investment.
“The idea is to introduce Canada to the tier-2 cities with strong economic centres that will contribute to making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025. These regions also have a lot of small and medium enterprises which are perhaps a better match for most of the Canadian size companies,” Smith said.
The investments are expected to fuel-in sectors like clean energy, agri-food, climate change and digital industries.
The first event is scheduled for January 13, 2020, in Gurugram and will move to cities like Indore, Jaipur, Aurangabad, Pune, Baroda, Bhubaneswar, Ludhiana and Visakhapatnam.