New Delhi: Canada and India have achieved a bilateral trade relationship that reached nearly C$12 billion in 2022, a significant increase of 57 percent from the previous year.
The sixth Ministerial Dialogue on Trade & Investment (MDTI) was held in Ottawa and co-chaired by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business, and Economic Development for the Government of Canada.
The Ministers acknowledged the importance of the services sector in enhancing the relationship and recognized the potential for increasing bilateral services trade, which reached C$8.9 billion in 2022.
Discussions during the meeting centred around issues related to trade and investment, including market access, regulatory cooperation, and investment promotion.
The Ministers also emphasized the importance of multilateralism in addressing common challenges and committed to continuing the MDTI as a vital mechanism for deepening and strengthening the bilateral trade and investment relationship.
Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the conflict in Ukraine, the bilateral trade relationship has flourished.
The Ministers formally re-launched the India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) negotiations, covering high-level commitments in goods, services, investment, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and dispute settlement, among others.
Canada supported India as G20 Chair and its priorities pursued in the G20 Trade and Investment Working Group. It acknowledged the importance of India in the Indo-Pacific region for Canada’s prosperity, security, and capacity to address environmental challenges.
The Ministers also noted the significant movement of professionals, skilled workers, students, and business travellers between the two countries and its immense contribution to enhancing the bilateral economic partnership.
They reaffirmed their commitment to the rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open, and inclusive multilateral trading system embodied by the World Trade Organization and agreed to strengthen it further.
Finally, India invited top Canadian universities to set up their campuses in India in line with the announcement made in the National Education Policy 2020 of India for facilitating foreign universities and educational institutions.