Harper announces opening of free-trade agreement talks with India
Postmedia News | November 12, 2010
Harper announces opening of free-trade agreement talks with India
SEOUL, South Korea — The prime ministers of Canada and India, both attending the G20 summit in South Korea, announced on Friday the two countries have begun free trade talks.
Pointing to study suggesting a trade deal could generate as much as $6 billion a year in each country, Prime Minister Stephen Harper billed the negotiations as "another step on the path" toward "opening new markets for Canadian goods and services."
Harper said the one million Indo-Canadians would be integral to fostering trade relations with India, the world’s largest democracy, home to nearly 1.2 billion people with a burgeoning middle class.
"These people-to-people ties can only be enhanced by a new Canada-India agreement on trade," said Harper, who was joined by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the announcement.
A statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said officials from both countries would meet shortly to begin discussing an agreement.
Harper and Singh met on Friday as talks at the G20 summit opened in Seoul. The conference is aimed at developing a strategy to fix currency rates and trade imbalances to aid the global economic recovery.
