Following a meeting of Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu Monday, both sides have decided to advance the timeline to conclude the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (Cepa) to November from December, Goyal said Tuesday.
“Prime Minister (Mark) Carney yesterday has shaved off one more month. He made it end of November in my meeting with him alongwith Maninder,” Goyal, who is currently on a three-day visit to Canada, said at an event in Toronto. “He wants us to deliver before the G20 Leaders’ Summit,” Goyal said. The G20 Leaders’ Summit is scheduled for December 14-15.
“Thank God, he didn’t say we should deliver before G20 Trade Minister, because that is in October,” Goyal said. “But possibly we can.”
“The sincerity that I have seen in both the negotiating team, don’t be surprised if they actually can deliver even faster than targeted,” Goyal said.
Goyal is in Canada for a three-day official visit, starting Monday. One of the agenda of Goyal’s visit to Canada, which concludes Wednesday, was to expedite the trade negotiations.
Meanwhile, Carney, after a meeting with Goyal, called the Cepa between the two nations a “game changer”.
“Carney affirmed that the proposed free-trade agreement with India would be a game changer, unlocking a massive new market”, the commerce ministry said in a release Tuesday. “Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to a balanced, commercially meaningful and ambitious Cepa, and directed their respective teams to work towards an agreement that strengthens economic partnerships and delivers tangible benefits to businesses and citizens of both nations,” the release added. A concurrent round of technical negotiations for the free-trade agreement is also simultaneously underway in Ottawa, the ministry said in the release.
Goyal, during his meeting with Canadian counterpart Maninder Sidhu, reviewed the outcomes of negotiations completed to date, and identified future opportunities to expand trade and investment flows. This was the first minister-level discussion held between the two countries since the signing of the terms of reference for the trade deal in March.
In a joint media address on Monday, Goyal said: “This is a partnership that’s being reset very very rapidly… The bilateral trade target of $50 billion by 2030 is very much doable given the sincerity of purpose, given the wonderful work both the negotiating teams have put in over the last two months.”
Sidhu said he would be taking a team from Canada trade mission to India later this year to match the energy that Goyal brought to Canada. “It is going to be building on the meetings that we are going to have in the next 48 hours, we are going to be sitting down with our chief negotiators. Two rounds have been done, we are going to be working together,” he added.
India and Canada have, so far, held two rounds of negotiations that entailed detailed discussions across a wide range of chapters, including trade in goods and services, intellectual property, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade, among others. The third round is scheduled for July in Ottawa.
Goyal explored ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in agriculture, with a focus on food security, sustainability, and agri-technology during his meeting with MacDonald.
In the next leg of the visit in Toronto, Goyal will lead the delegation through an intensive programme of industry roundtables and B2B engagements, aimed at translating ministerial-level commitment into concrete commercial partnerships across priority sectors. The delegation included over 100 industry leaders from sectors, including energy, mining, automotive goods, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, leather, and textiles.
India and Canada, which had a bilateral trade of $7.96 billion in FY26, aim to raise it to $50 billion by 2030. India’s key exports to Canada include drugs & pharmaceuticals, iron & steel, seafood, cotton garments, electronic goods, and chemicals. India had a trade surplus of $1.39 billion with Canada in FY26.
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