Canada sends 300 business delegates to India

International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu is leading a trade mission of nearly 300 Canadian business delegates to India this week, as Ottawa and New Delhi work to conclude a comprehensive economic partnership agreement by the end of the year.

The Team Canada Trade Mission runs Oct. 12 to 17 with stops in Mumbai and Bengaluru, according to a report from the Indian news agency IANS. Sidhu’s office has described it as Canada’s largest trade delegation to India in more than 30 years.

The delegates represent aerospace and space, clean technologies and the energy transition, information and communications technology, life sciences and agri-food, IANS reported.

“This is how we will more than double our trade with India to $70 billion by 2030,” Sidhu said, according to IANS.

That target is measured against $30.4 billion in two-way trade in goods and services in 2025, the same report said. The trade is lopsided in two ways. IANS reported that Canada sold India $3.9 billion in merchandise last year, led by vegetables, mineral fuels and oils, and wood pulp, while it bought $9.7 billion in goods, mainly precious stones and metals, machinery and pharmaceuticals.

Services run the other way. Canadian service exports to India were $15.1 billion, and imports were $4.3 billion, IANS said. It reported that education-related travel was the largest category of those service exports. The component figures in the IANS report do not add up to the $30.4 billion total, and the report does not explain the gap, so readers should treat the individual numbers with caution until they are checked against Statistics Canada tables.

The trip follows a run of negotiating sessions. The Press Trust of India reported that Sidhu met India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, on Oct. 1 and that Goyal called the talks “productive” and said both sides had reaffirmed their commitment to an early conclusion of the agreement. The fifth round of formal negotiations was held in Ottawa from Oct. 5 to 9, PTI reported. The fourth round took place in Mumbai.

The Canadian Press reported on Oct. 12 that the two countries are working toward a deal by the end of the year.

The mission is a sharp change from 2023, when relations froze after the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. Canada and India have since rebuilt contact at the ministerial level, as Canada News Media reported in its Sept. 22 look at the thaw.

None of the reports reviewed by Canada News Media said whether any contracts or investment commitments are expected to be signed during the trip. They also did not describe what Canada is asking India to change on tariffs or market access, or what it is prepared to give up. The text of the draft agreement has not been made public.

Those gaps matter beyond the boardroom. International students and the large Indian-Canadian community are among the most direct links between the two economies, and any deal that touches services, education or the movement of workers would be felt first by them. Farmers and pulse growers, whose exports have swung with Indian import rules, are another group to watch once details emerge.

Sidhu’s schedule for the remaining days of the mission has not been published in detail. Both governments have said they want the agreement finished by December.

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Via The Canadian Press (CTV News), with additional reporting from IANS (NewKerala) and the Press Trust of India (ThePrint).