Toronto: To examine the details of upcoming talks towards a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA), the trade ministers of Canada and India convened virtually on Wednesday.
The meeting was place between India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Canada’s Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu. Goyal also committed to head a high-level trade and investment trip to Canada in the new year.
In a post on X following the meeting, Goyal said, “We undertook initial scoping and broad discussions on the overall approach, contours, macro objectives and modalities as part of preparations for the launch of CEPA negotiations.” He called the conversation as “productive”.

In a statement, Sidhu stated that he met with Goyal to "discuss preparations to launch negotiations on a new Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)" and to "further strengthen the commercial ties between Canada and India."
He also looked forward to meeting Goyal and his trade and investment delegation next year.
Goyal's visit is one of at least three that Indian ministers will make in the first few months of next week as the two nations hold ministerial discussions on a variety of topics.

Following a meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the fringes of the G20 summit in Johannesburg last month, it was announced that new talks over the CEPA will begin.
Carney emphasized the necessity of a trade agreement while characterizing India as a dependable trading partner prior to the bilateral with Modi in Johannesburg. “The ability to have more effective trade with them, to scale that trade with them, would be greatly helped by that,” he added.
He said Canada has a “strong commercial relationship with India with Canadian companies “one of the major foreign investors”.

"What we're looking to do is put that down on a sound footing through a potential trade agreement," he stated in that regard.
In order to take advantage of low-hanging fruit, India and Canada abandoned their earlier CEPA in favor of the Early Progress Trade Agreement (EPTA) in 2022. A few weeks before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons on September 23, 2023, that there were "credible allegations" of a possible connection between Indian agents and the murder of pro-Khalistan leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar three months prior in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada "paused" negotiations in August 2023 after multiple rounds of talks. Relations collapsed as India called those charges "absurd."

A slow reset was set in action once Carney seized charge as PM this year, with the breakthrough in relations arriving when he conducted a bilateral with Modi on the margins of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis in June. Since then, the relationship has gathered momentum.
In order to strengthen bilateral relations, Carney is anticipated to travel to India in the first quarter of the following year.