Modi's visit to Canada will boost trade deals: Diplomat

Hyderabad, April 1, 2015: Canada expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit in April to help accelerate finalization of trade and investment agreements between the two countries, a Canadian diplomat has said. Sidney Frank, Canada's Consul General in Bengaluru, told IANS that the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) will have a huge impact and will facilitate much higher levels of trade in terms of both investment and actual product trade. "When both (agreements) are put into place, they should make a huge difference in terms of level of trade and investment between the two countries," Frank told IANS in an interview here. The diplomat, responsible for Canada's relations with southern India, was leading a business delegation on a visit to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. India and Canada were close to signing the FIPPA in 2013 and had hoped to conclude CEPA the same year. "There was some disappointment on FIPPA. Now that there is a new government, they are looking at a new template for bilateral investment. "We are very confident that we will have a good working relationship with the current government," he said, and noted that talks had re-started on CEPA. Bilateral trade between India and Canada in 2014 totalled 6.3 billion Canadian dollars, a growth of nine percent over the previous year. But the two countries did not reach the target of 15 billion dollars by 2015.