PM Departs for Asia with Ambitious Agenda

(David Akin — Canwest News Service)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper travels Thursday to Asia for a weekend summit in Singapore of Pacific Rim nations, followed by three days next week in India, a trip that Canadian officials hope leads to “a brand new era of partnership” with the world’s largest democracy.

It will be Harper’s first trip to India and his office has a jam-packed dawn-to-dusk itinerary that includes political, commercial, cultural and spiritual events. […]

“This is a very ambitious agenda for India,” said Dimitri Soudas, Harper’s chief spokesman. “There is a tremendous amount of untapped potential to the Canada-India relationship.”

A key focus for the trip will be improved trade relations with India, a country of 1.2 billion people whose economy is rapidly expanding despite the recession. Two-way trade between the two countries is tiny, at just $2 billion a year, but officials in both countries believe the time is right to increase that amount. Read more here.