Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will on Saturday begin his week-long state visit to India in a bid to further strengthen Indo-Canadian bilateral ties, officials said.
The visit, at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will focus on boosting relations in the key areas of mutual interest trade and investment, energy, science and innovation, higher education, infrastructure development, skill development and space.
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Trudeau is scheduled halt at Agra, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and New Delhi.
Trudeau’s Amritsar visit to the Golden Temple, the holiest of Sikh shrines, carries a political message to a huge constituency back home in Canada with a big Punjabi, especially Sikh, population settled there.
Trudeau, who took office in November 2015, inducted four ministers of Punjabi-origin in his government.
Canada is home to a large Indian diaspora, as approximately 3.6 per cent of Canadians are of Indian heritage and India is Canada’s second-largest source of immigrants. The majority of the immigrants are from Punjab.
Canada is also a leading education destination for Indian students, with approximately 124,000 Indians holding valid Canadian study permits last year.
The visit comes nearly three years after Modi visited Canada in April 2015. The last visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to India was in November 2012.
(With inputs from agencies)
