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G20 in Italy: Piyush Goyal holds talks with Canada’s Mary Ng with eye on CEPA
Piyush Goyal tweeted about the meeting saying talks were on “for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with energy, new technologies, and manufactured goods and services being key areas for future cooperation”
India and Canada held ministerial-level talks aimed at thrashing out a trade deal as commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal met Canada’s international trade minister Mary Ng in Sorrento, Italy on Monday. They attended the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting, and also held bilateral discussions on the margins of the event.
Mary Ng tweeted that they discussed “working together towards economic recovery, which includes progressing bilateral trade, including the flow of agricultural products”.
She also said they talked about reforms to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and “ambitious outcomes” ahead of its 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Geneva, Switzerland later this year.
Piyush Goyal tweeted about the meeting saying talks were on “for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with energy, new technologies, and manufactured goods and services being key areas for future cooperation”.
Ajay Bisaria, India’s high commissioner to Canada, described the meeting between Piyush Goyal and Mary Ng on the sidelines of the G20 summit as “excellent” and added that the CEPA, if it is sealed, “will strengthen economic engagement”.
After languishing for nearly four years, Indian and Canadian negotiators resumed discussions in June towards a possible trade pact between the two countries.
The discussions, held virtually, were undertaken by officials of India’s commerce ministry and those from Canada’s international trade department. They had revisited the planned CEPA, which has been under consideration for a full decade after talks were initiated under then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Stephen Harper, Canada’s PM at that time.
The last round of negotiations was held in August 2017. While Canadian officials wanted to clinch a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) prior to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to India in February 2018, New Delhi was more interested in sealing the CEPA first.
However, with bilateral relations turning sour following that visit, fresh talks were not scheduled.
In the backdrop of Piyush Goyal’s meeting with Mary Ng alongside the G20 summit in Italy, a senior Indian official said discussions are now on for a “CEPA-lite”, a streamlined version of the deal, which would take into account areas of convergence and interest to the two nations.
The last ministerial-level dialogue on CEPA was held in September 2016 by two leaders who are now both finance ministers - Nirmala Sitharaman, then commerce minister, and Chrystia Freeland, minister of international trade at that time.
