India-Canada free trade deal may be concluded next month, says Maninder Sidhu

After Ottawa announced the successful conclusion of negotiations towards a free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN and the Philippines, Canada’s Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu expressed confidence that India will be “the next one that we’re going to get done.”

That reference was to ongoing negotiations towards the comprehensive economic partnership agreement or CEPA. Sidhu travelled to India for three days last week as the sixth round of negotiations commenced.

“India will be the next one that we’re going to get done,” he told reporters in Manila, where he was accompanying Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to the ASEAN Summit. Sidhu travelled to Manila from India, where he spent three days and held a bilateral meeting with Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal in New Delhi.

Sidhu expressed optimism that the two countries would be able to “lock down” the agreement by next month, the deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Carney for concluding negotiations. Modi is scheduled to visit Canada in the second week of December, with the focus being on announcing the conclusion of the free trade agreement talks.

Sidhu stressed that in looking at the deal with India, Canada wasn’t just throwing a dart at a board, but had consulted with businesses, companies and chambers of commerce over the markets to which they sought access.

In India, Sidhu also participated in the Confederation of Indian Industry or CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam, which a statement from Global Affairs Canada said “reinforced Canada’s commitment to diversifying its commercial relationships with international partners and creating new opportunities for Canadian businesses and workers.”

The objective of the CEPA is to double bilateral trade to CA$ 70 billion by 2030. “With a market of nearly 1.5 billion people, India presents significant opportunities for Canadian businesses across a range of sectors, from agri-food and clean energy to AI and aerospace. Canada is a trusted and reliable partner, and building closer economic ties with India will help create better jobs here at home,” Sidhu said in the statement.