Start Talking Free Trade Deal with India: CEOs

(Embassy – Michelle Collins)

With the rest of the world already knocking on India’s door for trade and economic partnerships, Canadian business leaders are calling for trade negotiations with the emerging Asian economic power and for the prime minister to meet with India’s prime minister – on the double.

Over the last year, Canadian and Indian CEOs have met and studied the feasibility of launching free trade negotiations in response to a request from the countries’ trade ministers in June 2007.

In report released September 2, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and its Indian counterpart, the Confederation of Indian Industry, make several recommendations and strongly endorse advancing economic and political ties far beyond current levels.

This would include annual meetings between the prime ministers, more active private sector engagement, increased educational exchanges and augmenting those agreements already in place into a “modern, high-quality and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.”

In a letter sent to International Trade Minister Michael Fortier last week, the president of the Canadian Council, Thomas D’Aquino, and chief mentor of the Indian Confederation, Tarun Das, encouraged the minister to “seek a mandate” from the prime minister to begin discussions.

Indeed, throughout the report, considerable emphasis is placed on the need for meetings between the countries’ leaders, stating that “the robustness of our relationship” will depend on the commitment of political, business and non-governmental leaders.

“Canada and India should enter into a new era of co-operation, and should move quickly to deepen and accelerate the growing ties between our countries,” the report states. It goes on to declare: “Our Ministers should begin negotiations as soon as possible but should be mindful that more study will be needed in a number of sensitive sectors, including the agriculture and culture sectors.”

Both Canada and India are sensitive about opening the agricultural and film and television industries to foreign trade.

The agreements off which Canada and India should build include the recently concluded foreign investment protection and promotion agreement and a 2005 scientific and technological co-operation deal the report said. The two countries are also working on a forum for environmental collaboration and to share educational exchanges through forums such as the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute in Calgary.

Liberal Trade critic Navdeep Bains, who travelled to India three years ago with then-prime minister Paul Martin for the signing of the science and technology agreement, said he is very supportive of launching a trade agreement with India.

Mr. Bains said the trip to meet with high-level officials in India, including the prime minister, “spoke volumes,” and he was critical of the Conservatives’ lack of leadership on the file.

“[Mr. Martin’s visit] sent a clear signal right from the top of our government, and the fact that Mr. Harper hasn’t travelled there sends, in my opinion, the wrong signal,” Mr. Bains said. “It indicates that it’s not a priority, and I genuinely believe that it’s a lot of window dressing that they’ve just been working on smaller agreements, and trade in general, they’ve really taken a step back.”

Indeed, the scope in which to advance bilateral relations is described as “limitless” in the report, and there is value given to the vibrant Indo-Canadian community as an untapped potential in the relationship.

Notably, Canadian business leaders in particular appear to be driven by an urgency to reach out to India. As stated in the report, a Canadian participant declared in one meeting that “India may not need Canada, but Canada certainly needs India.”

With an enormous need for developing its infrastructure, one official at the Canadian Council of Chief Executives told Embassy he expects the Indian government would welcome greater private sector involvement in this area, and that Canada’s private sector would greatly benefit.

“India has huge requirements for infrastructure development, in particular in transportation and telecommunications, and Canadian business is there and interested,” the official said.

The official said there has been no response to the report yet from the government, and with an election underway, it is unlikely one will come anytime soon. He said he hopes that the next government, whichever party it may be, will take the recommendations seriously, and act immediately. Read the complete article.