Canada courting Indian business partnerships in race to seal trade deal

Canada’s largest trade mission to India in 30 years has netted about 30 commercial partnerships worth $300 million, according to International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu.

Canadian international trade minister touts $300 million in commercial partnerships

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Canada’s largest trade mission to India in 30 years has netted about 30 commercial partnerships worth $300 million, according to International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu.

"It’s a market we can’t ignore," Sidhu told CBC News in an interview in Mumbai this week.

Sidhu is leading a weeklong trade pitch in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangaluru with a 300-member Team Canada to connect Canadian businesses and industry with Indian ventures. 

It's the prelude to a significant trade pact, CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), which Canada is racing to conclude before mid-December, when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Canada.

Canada is looking to bring down Indian tariffs, including on commodities such as pulses and potash.

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The Team Canada mission reflects a significant shift in Canadian-Indian relations, which ruptured three years ago after Justin Trudeau's government said intelligence showed "credible allegations" linking Indian government agents to the fatal shooting of a Sikh separatist leader in B.C. India’s government called the claims "absurd," touching off political and diplomatic tensions. Canada expelled a diplomat, India followed suit.

The Canada-India reset over the past two years has been dramatic, says Harsh V. Pant, a strategic analyst and vice-president at ORF Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.

Both sides have worked hard to ensure that the challenges — terrorism, law enforcement, cybersecurity and internal security — are being dealt with, says Pant.

"That's why perhaps one needs to be a bit more optimistic about the possibility of this [trade] dance going forward," he said.

Massive population, booming economy

India’s population of 1.4 billion and seven per cent economic growth rate is a big draw for business.

Team Canada delegates squeeze into a shop in Crawford Market in southern Mumbai to hear about what Canadian goods are imported and sold at this specialty store. (Kate Kyle/CBC)

During a visit to Mumbai’s hot and crowded Crawford Market, about two dozen Team Canada delegates sweated their way from stall to stall, looking at packaged goods and the ways they are sold. 

Agri-Neo, a Canadian food safety technology company, is pitching Indian exporters on its unique method to pasteurize and process dry goods like seeds, nuts and herbs for export to countries with strict food safety regulations.

India, the world's No. 1 spice exporter, is a potentially huge market for the technology, says Shivam Chandran, senior global sales manager at Agri-Neo and part of the Canadian trade mission.

"A lot of the customers we’ve spoken to say that the [Indian] domestic market is also changing considerably, so in the next two to three years they’re going to be looking for better food safety technologies," said Chandran.

Seed and nut vendors are seen in Crawford Market in Mumbai, India. (Kate Kyle/CBC)

Paola Duncan, CEO of OrionSea Enterprises, a Canadian exporter of pulses, says that India opened a new tender last week for 60,000 tonnes of lentils, after a bad crop in India this year increased demand. 

Canada is already a top supplier, but "needs to be more competitive price-wise and quality-wise in order to stay in the market," Duncan said.

Aiming for $70B in 2-way trade

Finding trade opportunities is one thing but competing at scale in India is another, says Sidhu. 

"We need to engage [Canadian] businesses, and we need to support businesses to come to markets like India," he said. "It's not an easy place that you can just come [to] and make a phone call."

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At a packed Canada-India Business Council forum in Mumbai this week, panellists spoke about the momentum behind both the trade mission and the CEPA negotiations. 

Two-way trade between the countries adds up to about $30 billion annually, and the Carney government is pushing to hit $70 billion per year by 2030.

Paola Duncan, CEO of Canadian exporter OrionSea Enterprises Inc., is looking to expand pulses exports to India. 'It’s a strong market for Canada,' she said while touring the Crawford Market in southern Mumbai. (Kate Kyle/CBC)

"We feel there's a brotherhood or sisterhood between the two nations. I think the political friction is over, for whatever it was," said Zia Modi, a corporate lawyer with AZB and Partners in India.

"Canadians have invested for so long in India, especially the pension funds, that they've become what I call 'Indianized,'" she said, referring to the more than $100 billion in investments and portfolio holdings in 2025, according to Export Development Canada.

"They know our culture, they know the flavour, they've become very thoughtful and intelligent about where they want to invest, why they want to invest and with whom they want to invest."

Modi says geopolitical tensions, particularly with the U.S., and timing are a large part of the push for more bilateral trade.

"Canada has to become more self-reliant, and we have to become self-reliant," she said. "New partnerships will be forged, for sure."

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