Officials stated after commerce minister Piyush Goyal and his Canadian counterpart Mary Ng reviewed the progress of ongoing negotiations for a free trade agreement between the two countries a day before the CEOs roundtable that was held on Tuesday in Toronto that India and Canada may sign an interim free trade agreement by this year, which is the precursor to a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

India and Canada are negotiating a two-step FTA, the first of which will be an interim agreement by this year that will cover goods, services, rules of origin, technical trade barriers, and dispute resolution; The officials, who requested anonymity, added that the India-Canada CEPA would follow to cover additional bilateral issues of strategic importance.

As per the authorities, the break discussion with Canada – likewise called the Early Advancement Economic Deal (EPTA) – – is “advancing quickly” and the two nations might sign an arrangement in the final part of this current year. They added that EPTA will eventually develop into a comprehensive FTA and may also include small and medium-sized businesses. The seventh round of exchanges for EPTA was held in Ottawa last month.

Goyal declared, in a tweet following the CEOs’ roundtable, that Canada and India are “Partners in Growth!” Inviting Captains of Industry to invest in India’s resilient growth story, he made the remarks at the CEOs Roundtable in Toronto.

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Ng, who is Canada’s global exchange serve, tweeted: ” Today, @PiyushGoyal and I facilitated a roundtable with Canadian and Indian organizations to hear direct the way in which we can make it more straightforward for these organizations to cooperate and to assist them with succeeding.”

She continued, “The close collaboration and hard work of Indian and Canadian businesses is the root of the success of the Canada-India relationship.” The Business Council of Canada (BCC) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) collaborated to organize the roundtable.