India and Canada held preliminary talks on the broad contours of their proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) negotiations for which are likely to be launched soon.
Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal held a virtual meeting with Canada’s minister of international trade Maninder Sidhu late Wednesday. “We undertook initial scoping and broad discussions on the overall approach, contours, macro objectives and modalities as part of preparations for the launch of CEPA negotiations,” Goyal posted in ‘X’.
“We discussed preparations to launch negotiations on a new CEPA,” Sidhu said. Both the ministers also agreed to lead a high-level trade and investment delegation to Canada in the new year.
India, Canada discussions on CEPA
India and Canada agreed to start negotiations on a “high-ambition” CEPA at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Johannesburg.
The agreement will cover trade in goods and services, investment, agriculture and agri-food, digital trade, mobility and sustainable development. The negotiations on CEPA with Canada were first started in 2010 but could not make much progress. The negotiations were relaunched in March 2022 before being abandoned in August-September of 2023 due to political differences. The repair of the breach started with the election of Carney as Prime Minister in March.
Target set by India and Canada
The new CEPA will be negotiated from the start and would not be a continuation of the discussions held in the past.
Through the agreement both sides aim at doubling bilateral trade to $ 50 billion by 2030.
Goods and services between the two countries stood at $23.66 billion in 2024, with merchandise trade valued at nearly $8.98 billion,and the rest coming from services. In 2024-25 India’s goods exports to Canada were up 9.80% to $ 4.22 billion while imports from Canada fell 2.3% to $ 4.44 billion.