India has invited top Canadian universities to set up local campuses during discussions at the meeting of India-Canada Ministerial Dialogue on Trade and Investment (MDTI) in Ottawa that was co-chaired by trade ministers of both countries.
“In line with the announcement made in the National Education Policy 2020 of India for facilitating foreign universities and educational institutions, India also invited top Canadian Universities to set up their campuses in India,” a joint statement issued after the MDTI meeting said.
The meeting was co-chaired by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Government of Canada Mary Ng,
At the trade forum meeting both sides also reviewed progress of negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and Early Progress Trade Agreement (ETPA), which will be a transitional step before the full-fledged economic partnership agreement.
India and Canada relaunched negotiations on CEPA in March 2022. CEPA talks were first launched in November 2010 and 10 rounds of talks were held till 2017. Then after a lull of three years negotiators of both countries met in November 2020 to explore the option of an interim trade agreement. After delays due to COVID the talks were formally restarted in March last year. Since the relaunch of negotiations seven rounds of official-level talks have happened on the proposed agreement.
“The EPTA would cover, among others, high level commitments in goods, services, investment, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and dispute settlement, and may also cover other areas where mutual agreement is reached,” the statement said.
Both sides also agreed to launch enhanced discussions in the area of migration and mobility while noting the already significant movement of businessmen, skilled workers, professionals and students and its contribution to enhancing economic partnership.
In all its bilateral and multilateral trade talks India has pushed for ease of movement and temporary stay of its professionals in partner countries to enable them to provide services across various sectors.
.India and Canada also agreed to explore enhanced cooperation through measures such as coordinated investment promotion, information exchange and mutual support in the near future through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) preferably in the last quarter of 2023.
“The Ministers also underlined the contribution of the services sector in furthering the bilateral relationship and noted the significant potential for increasing bilateral services trade which stood at Canadian dollar 8.9 billion (US$6.65 billion) in 2022.
India-Canada bilateral trade in goods reached about US$ 8.2 billion in 2022, registering about 25% growth compared to 2021.