The India-Canada trade deal will be ready by the end of the year, Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter told The Hindu, adding that the two countries are planning for their increased engagement this year to culminate in a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Canada in December.
Cooter said that India and Canada had ample opportunities to invest in each other, saying that bilateral investment could scale up to $1 trillion. Cooter acknowledged that while trade between India and Canada is currently small (about US$8 billion), the investment relationship between the two countries is a strong one, with a large space to grow. “The other part of the story is that, while trade itself is rather small, the pension funds and other big institutional investors have about $100-110 billion Canadian dollars or $80 billion U.S. dollars in investment in India. “We estimate that no less than 75% of all our investment through those funds is in physical assets.
“Our hope is that we get there by the time of a Modi visit to Canada, which would mean achieving this in about nine months [since March],” he added. “So, you actually provide good employment for 100,000 Canadians in Canada through Indian investment in Canada,” Mr. Cooter said. “But the difference with Canadian investment is that our investment through these institutional investors is also direct investment,” Mr.
Speaking at The Hindu Mind in New Delhi, Mr. He did, however, point out that India could ease some tax and regulatory issues to spur further investment, something Canada was engaging with the Union Finance Ministry on. “That’s like a child — we hope this is a really nice baby. I’m pretty confident the trade deal will be agreed to by the end of the year. Mr. Cooter explained. And no other country has that,” he added. “And I think it’s actually higher than that. So, those create not just tens of thousands, those create hundreds of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly.”
