India and Canada open a five-day CEPA round with a year-end target

India and Canada opened the fourth round of talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in New Delhi on 14 September. The session runs five days, through 18 September. Officials said the two sides still aim to finish the text this year. The third round was in Ottawa in July.

The agenda is the unglamorous middle of a trade pact: goods, services, rules of origin and technical barriers to trade. Those four headings decide whether an Indian generic drug enters Canada as a finished medicine or as a chemical, and whether a Canadian pulse shipment clears an Indian port without a new test. They are also the headings that stalled earlier attempts.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed in New Delhi in March to try to close the deal in 2026 and to deepen work on energy and critical minerals. Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter told The Hindu on 10 September that the pact should be ready for a Modi visit to Canada in December. Previously, we discussed for 12 years, and we got no trade agreement, he said. This time, we started in March 2026. We have probably done more in these six months than we did in those 12 years.

The trade that is supposed to grow

Two-way goods trade fell 8.22 percent in 2025-26, to $7.95 billion from $8.66 billion. Indian exports were $4.67 billion. Imports from Canada were $3.28 billion. A year earlier the import number was $4.44 billion. The official target cited by the commerce side in Delhi is $50 billion by 2030. The March joint statement used a Canadian-dollar figure of $70 billion for the same year. The two numbers are not the same currency. Both are a long walk from $8 billion.

India sells Canada pharmaceuticals, iron and steel, seafood, cotton garments, electronics and chemicals. It buys pulses, pearls and semi-precious stones, coal, fertiliser, paper and crude. Services run the other direction as well: Indian firms book telecommunications, computer and other business-service work in Canada. More than 425,000 Indian students are in the country. That stock of people is larger than the goods account and is not covered by a tariff line.

Rules of origin will decide whether a car part made in India with Korean steel counts as Indian enough to take a Canadian preference. Technical barriers will decide whether an Indian drug plant's inspection record is accepted or whether Ottawa wants a second audit. Those are the fights that fill a five-day round. They are also the fights that produce a thin deal if both sides want a December photo more than they want a durable text.

What December can and cannot fix

A Modi visit can sign a concluded agreement. It cannot invent the missing chapters. If goods and origin are closed in New Delhi this week and services slip to a later round, December becomes a framework-plus-annex event, not a finished CEPA. Cooter's confidence is a diplomatic signal, not a scorecard.

The political weather around the table is quieter than it was in 2023, when the two governments spent months on accusations over a killing in Canada. Trade talks restart when that weather changes. They still have to survive the next weather. A year-end target is a way to keep negotiators in the room through September. The $7.95 billion account is the reason the room exists. Closing the gap to $50 billion, or to C$70 billion, will take more than a December ceremony. It will take the rules this week is writing, if they get written.