India’s new envoy wants fuller trade with Canada as Thaw – National relations
India’s new envoy to Canada says Ottawa should move away from a grassroots trade deal and instead reach a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the populous country.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Canadian Press, the Indian High Commissioner, Dinesh Patnaik also said that Canadian businesses should increase trade and investment ties with India now, without waiting for governments to sign a formal trade agreement.
“We are more interested in a complete package than something with low ambition. We want high ambition,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
“A trade deal is something we shouldn’t wait for. We have to start getting whatever we can, the early benefits.”
Canada and India have been talking about trade talks since 2010. Those talks were temporarily suspended and largely shut down by Ottawa in 2023, after the Federal Government was accused of complicity in the killing of a Canadian activist in Surrey, B.C.
The Carney government has made it a priority to reset relations with India, including a visit earlier this month by Prime Minister Anita Anand to India Anand with a statement to “Renew momentum in a strong partnership.” The statement refers to trading over and over again.
This statement was a major shift in tone from the year before, when Canada expelled six Indian diplomats after the RCMPP was accused of murder by New Delhi, adultery and coercion in Canada. In the fall of 2023, India filtered out diplomatic protection from many of Canada’s enemies.
Patnaik said that despite “minor hiccups” in political relations in recent years, “trade is not backing down.”
“But looking at it another way, trade has never reached as high as () it should have been, between the G7 countries and the world’s fourth largest economy,” he added.
Before Coppiplomatic Chile begins in 2023, Canada and India have already died their ambitions for trade talks from seeking a comprehensive economic agreement to pursuing limited investment in certain industries.
Get news from around the country
Get the top stories of the Day, politics, economics, and current affairs, delivered to your inbox once a day.
The trade talks presented in 2010 include a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, but in 2023, negotiations could strengthen the first trade agreement, which may have been made for his own or led to the passage of time, which led. No country has officially announced which sectors are on the table.
India has signed both these types of deals with different countries. For example, Australia signed a limited agreement in 2022 that includes sectors such as coal, lentils and rare earths, with talk of possibly introducing talks on a broader agreement.
Patnaik said India wants to “come together on all fronts” with Canada through an agreement that goes beyond trade in certain goods, such as Canadian textiles.
He said the trade agreement would yield huge economic benefits if it included service sectors such as education and cultural fields such as filmmaking.
“It’s time for us to look at things from a different perspective,” he said.
“I don’t want to reduce trade to just buying and selling, but to this larger economic framework where capital is invested, where we collaborate with labor, scientific research, innovation, high technology – everything.”
Both Canada and India are working to shift their trade away from the expanding United States. US President Donald Trump Hit Canada with tariffs linked to the flow of minuscule offerl across the border, and put 50 tariffs on Indian products to stop buying New Delhi.
But Canada was falling behind its trade peers with India even before Trump returned to the White House, Patnaik said.
He pointed out that since trade talks with Ottawa started in 2010, New Delhi has signed deals with the UK, Australia and the United Arab Emirates and is “on the verge of signing with the European Union.
“If, perhaps, the trade talks with Canada would not have stopped for a while, they might have had a trade agreement with Canada,” he said.
“We’re moving forward with the rest of the world, and we don’t want to be less ambitious about Canada.”
India has long been viewed by trade analysts as a protectionist country, with tight controls on imports and the scope of foreign companies, and a focus on domestic production. The country has a trade deficit with many western countries, partly due to a boom in illegal call centers and IT systems.
The country also imposes conditions on trade that have made it a challenge for foreign companies – such as the fumigation rules imposed on Canadian peas and lentils in 2017.
Bandering Canada’s foreign ministry prepared for Transport Minister Mannder Sidhu during a mission this spring pointed out both the benefits and pitfalls involved in pursuing more trade with India.
“India offers significant opportunities in the medium term, although it is a challenging environment for exporters,” May Stick said.
In that context, global news Canada accuses India of putting pressure on the order of global trade, especially the rules defined by the World Trade Organization.
“Discussions of major interests such as agriculture have stopped.
Patrik said India will “do whatever it takes to increase trade” with Canada.
“If we can change the rules and the work sector by sector, we can do that too,” he said.
Patnaik also suggested that India wants to move past trade disputes over issues such as fumigation and pesticides.
“Trade is basically opened, not put up barriers. There are no barriers that are not taxes, there are no barriers of financial purity,” he said.
He also presented his country as a democratic democracy that shares values and deep Diaspora Ties with Canada.
The American Lonf Freedom perform House gives India a figure of 63 percent in freedom, concerns about apartheid policies, religious persecution and harassment of social groups under Indian Narendra Modi. It also claims that the country is a multiparty democracy with free and fair elections.
“We are two democracies with complementary economies, open societies, diversity, pluralism, freedom, rule of law, freedom of the press – everything should be very close,” Patnaik said.
“Let’s find ways to collaborate more powerfully, more strategically, more closely than we currently have.”
