Federal minister sees progress on early-stage India trade deal

India and Canada are getting closer to signing an early-stage trade agreement, a move that’s part of a larger Canadian strategy to diversify its Pacific trade and supply chains away from China.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is in Ottawa on Monday for ministerial talks and the two countries are making steady progress toward a deal, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Canada has had intermittent trade negotiations with India going back more than a decade, but last year the two sides decided to narrow the scope and focus on an initial deal that would include a few industries, rather than an economy-wide accord.

Ng said she has a strong relationship with Goyal and that they are advancing toward a signed agreement. “It is not going to be years,” she said about how much longer it will take. The point of doing an early-stage trade deal is to be practical and spend time on areas of agreement rather than having talks drag out, she said.