India, Canada to start talks next week on beginning negotiations on trade pact: Goyal
Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
India and Canada will start discussions from next week on beginning negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement (FTA), Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.
However, the actual negotiations are likely to kick-start not before February 2026 so as to provide enough time for due-diligence procedures and stakeholder consultations, sources said.
“The Canadian government needs to wait for a period of time after it tables its intention to get into FTA negotiations in the Canadian Parliament (which happened this week). Both India and Canada would also want to hold their respective stakeholder consultations,” a source tracking the matter told businessline.
In 2023, Canada suspended negotiations for an FTA with India following then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations that Indian officials were involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
But after Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada’s new Prime Minister in March 2025, bilateral relations have been on the mend, another source said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Carney on the sidelines of the G20 meet in Johannesburg last week following which the Canadian PM accepted Modi’s invitation to visit India in early 2026.
“Canada and India are looking at CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement). Next week, they are going to kick start conversations around that,” Goyal said at the FICCI annual general meeting on Friday.
Focus areas for India-Canada business partnership must include critical minerals, clean energy, aero space, AI, quantum computing and also defence capabilities, Goyal said earlier this week at a business forum meeting.
India’s goods exports to Canada rose 9.8 per cent to $4.22 billion in 2024-25 from $3.84 billion in 2023-24. Imports from Canada declined 2.33 per cent to $4.44 billion from $4.55 billion in 2023-24.
Published on November 28, 2025
