India and Canada set a C$70 billion trade target and reopen an investment treaty

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Canada’s Minister of Finance and National Revenue, François-Philippe Champagne, issued a joint statement on Friday after the first India-Canada Finance Ministers’ Economic and Financial Dialogue. The text repeats a promise made by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Mark Carney in New Delhi in March: finish talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement by the end of 2026. India also said it is ready to open negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty at the earliest.

The two governments set a working target of C$70 billion, or ₹4.65 lakh crore, in bilateral trade by 2030. Merchandise trade in 2025-26 was about $8 billion, with Indian exports of $4.67 billion and imports of $3.28 billion, according to India’s commerce ministry. A separate older target of $50 billion by 2030 still appears in some briefings. The new Canadian-dollar figure is the one in Friday’s statement.

Champagne told reporters in Toronto that Canada can be a strategic partner for India’s energy and food security. He noted that India is now spoken of as the fourth-largest economy and a market of 1.4 billion people. After the closed dialogue the two ministers met Canadian firms in financial services, fintech, technology, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, and energy and natural resources. The official readout listed payments and critical minerals as fields for further work.

The meeting matters because the political weather between the two capitals has only recently turned. Relations froze after Canada’s previous government accused Indian agents in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. High commissioners were expelled. Visa processing slowed. Carney’s March visit to New Delhi was the first serious attempt to put commerce back in front of the intelligence file. Friday’s finance channel is the follow-through.

A CEPA is not a press statement. Negotiators still have to write chapters on goods, services, mobility, investment protection and dispute settlement. Dairy, pulses and student visas have blocked earlier rounds with other partners. A BIT raises a separate Indian problem. New Delhi has rewritten its model treaty in recent years to limit investor-state claims after a run of lost cases. Canada’s pension funds, which already hold Indian infrastructure and market assets, will want clearer protections than the model now offers. That gap is why India’s readiness to talk is news, and why the text of any BIT will be the real test.

Sitharaman is on an official visit to Canada and the United States from 25 August to 2 September. The Toronto dialogue was the first stop on a trip that also has to deal with American trade friction. For Ottawa the arithmetic is simpler. Canada wants customers for energy, fertiliser and food that do not run only through the United States. India wants capital and commodities that do not run only through China. Friday put numbers on that swap. The lawyers have four months if the year-end CEPA date is to mean anything.