“Today, we are here to announce after the understanding reached between both the Prime Ministers (of India and Canada) a formal launch of comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA),” said India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.
On his part, Canadian Trade Minister Peter Van Loan said: “We are quite excited about the (proposed) agreement. It will be offering an annual benefit of $6-15 billion to our economy. The Indian economy will benefit $12 billion a year,” he said.
Van Loan said though both the countries share common values of democracy and the rule of law make them natural business partners, Canada’s relationship with India remains “under-traded.”
“We are going to set the architecture for how we go about the negotiation. This will not be an easy free trade agreement. It will require a lot of hard work. But I believe both countries are committed for it,” Loan said in New Delhi, where the talks are taking place.
Sharma, meanwhile, said that as per a joint study group report, both countries will benefit from the CECA and the gains for Indian and Canada would be of the order of 39 to 62 percent. “India’s GDP is likely to benefit by about $10 billion from the proposed free trade pact,” he added.
“The gains which are projected in the report were between $6 billion to $12 billion for the Indian GDP and for Canada, between $6 billion and $15 billion. That’s why I feel that it would be averaged at $10 billion, that is, when the CECA is concluded,” Sharma said. “We hope that at least $10 billion should be the gain to begin with.”
Declining to put a timeline on the negotiations, Loan said: “It’s far too early to tell. Typically it takes years. Our European Union talks are expected to conclude in two years. We would be delighted if we could do something with India during the same time-frame.”
“A comprehensive economic partnership agreement is likely to triple India-Canada bilateral trade to nearly $15 billion in the next five years,” he said, adding that a business forum would be set up to maximize growth opportunities for businessmen of both countries.
“Free trade with India is an important part of our government’s broad free trade agenda of opening markets for Canadian businesses and creating new jobs for Canadian workers,” Laon said.
Aiming to double international trade by 2014, India is engaged in free trade negotiations with several countries and group of countries.
While a comprehensive economic pact between India and Japan is likely to be signed within a month, negotiations with the European Union and Malaysia are at an advance stage, according to officials.
Similarly, New Delhi is mulling a comprehensive economic pact with Washington. India recently signed a free trade pact with the 10-nation Association of South-East Asian Nations. The country has already operationalized a similar trade pact with South Korea and Singapore.
