Canadaupdated 51m ago3 min read
Modi And Mark Carney Agree To Advance India-Canada Trade Deal Ahead Of December Visit
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Modi and Carney discussed advancing bilateral partnership with tangible progress in trade, energy, tech, security. Canada aims to seal an Economic Partnership Agreement by November ahead of Modi's December visit.
Modi-Carney set CEPA pace
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to maintain close contact ahead of Modi’s planned December 2026 visit to Canada, as they discussed turning renewed diplomatic engagement into concrete economic outcomes during a telephone conversation on October 13, 2026. Modi said the leaders had agreed to work towards concrete outcomes across key areas of their strategic partnership, including trade, energy, technology, security and people-to-people ties, in a message he shared on X. Canada’s International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu led a weeklong Team Canada trade pitch in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangaluru with a 300-member delegation to connect Canadian businesses and industry with Indian ventures.
Sidhu said Canada was racing to conclude CEPA before mid-December, when Modi is expected to visit Canada, and Canada was looking to bring down Indian tariffs, including on commodities such as pulses and potash. India’s High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh K Patnaik said the fourth round of CEPA negotiations had concluded and India hoped to be in a position to sign the trade pact during Modi’s visit, with confidence that the agreement could be finalised by November.
Trade mission and tariff focus
Sidhu told CBC News in an interview in Mumbai that Team Canada’s mission was “a market we can’t ignore,” as the delegation moved through Crawford Market in southern Mumbai to connect with Indian buyers and sellers.
Agri-Neo’s senior global sales manager Shivam Chandran said customers had told him that “in the next two to three years they’re going to be looking for better food safety technologies,” as the company pitched pasteurization and processing for dry goods like seeds, nuts and herbs.
OrionSea Enterprises CEO Paola Duncan said India opened a new tender last week for 60,000 tonnes of lentils after a bad crop increased demand, while she said Canada “needs to be more competitive price-wise and quality-wise in order to stay in the market.”
Harsh V. Pant, a strategic analyst and vice-president at ORF Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, said the diplomatic reset had worked to ensure challenges including terrorism, law enforcement, cybersecurity and internal security were being dealt with.
Zia Modi, a corporate lawyer with AZB and Partners in India, said “Canadians have invested for so long in India” and described the result as “Indianized,” while also pointing to geopolitical tensions and timing as part of the push for more bilateral trade.
What CEPA could change next
Anita Anand told Reuters at the Canadian Embassy in New Delhi that CEPA with India was a fundamental pillar of Ottawa’s trade diversification strategy, and she said Canada aims to conclude the agreement by the end of 2026. Anand said Canada aims to double its trade with partners outside the United States over the next ten years, while describing negotiations with India as progressing satisfactorily and noting that Indian trade negotiators visited Canada last week. Modi and Carney’s October 13 call also framed the CEPA push as part of a broader strategic partnership, with both leaders agreeing to pursue tangible progress in trade, energy, technology and security.
Patnaik said a CEPA would reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, address technical trade hurdles and facilitate compliance requirements, and he said it would support increased investment flows, expand trade in services and ease the movement of people, goods and capital. The Times of India published a message from Canada’s foreign minister that Canada was committed to concluding a mutually beneficial CEPA by the end of this year when Modi visits our country, and it said the delegation included nearly 300 delegates currently visiting India to connect with Indian decision makers and potential clients.