India and Canada today decided to relaunch negotiations for a bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and also consider an interim Early Progress Trade Agreement (EPTA) that could bring early commercial gains to both the countries.

The decision came at the 5th ministerial dialogue on Trade & Investment held here. Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and Mary Ng, Canada’s Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade co-chaired the meeting.

The two ministers highlighted the existing trade complementarities between India and Canada and emphasised that the trade agreement would help in expanding bilateral trade in goods and services through unlocking the potential across sectors.

The interim agreement would include high-level commitments in goods, services, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and dispute settlement, and may also cover any other areas mutually agreed upon.

A range of other bilateral trade and investment issues were discussed during the meeting.

Both countries agreed to undertake intensified work with respect to the recognition of Canada’s systems approach to pest risk management in pulses and market access for Indian agriculture goods such as sweet corn, baby corn and banana etc.

Canada also agreed to examine expeditiously the request for Conformity Verification Body (CVB) status to APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) for facilitating Indian organic export products.

The two sides acknowledged the significance of establishing resilient supply chains in critical sectors and exchanged views on collaboration in this area.  They emphasised enhancing cooperation in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and critical and rare earth minerals as well as in areas like tourism, urban infrastructure, renewable energy and mining. They also noted the role of strong people-to-people ties between the two countries, including movement of professionals and skilled workers, students, and business travellers, in strengthening the bilateral economic partnership.

They also agreed to work closely to provide sustained momentum to building linkages and strengthen cooperation across sectors to harness the full potential of the trade and investment relationship between India and Canada.