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India-Canada Begin Fifth Round of Free-Trade Talks in Ottawa on Oct. 5, Target Year-End Deal
India and Canada's chief negotiators begin the fifth round of CEPA free-trade talks in Ottawa on Oct. 5, aiming to conclude by year-end. Canada's trade minister visits New Delhi later this month with a 300-strong business delegation.
Why it matters
After years of frozen relations, India and Canada are now racing to finish a free-trade deal by year's end. With Prime Minister Modi expected to visit Canada in December, this week's Ottawa round could set the terms of a major economic reset between the two countries.
Full report
The chief negotiators of India and Canada will begin the fifth round of negotiations for the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in Ottawa on Oct. 5, with the aim of concluding the talks by the end of this calendar year, The Hindu BusinessLine reported on Oct. 4, citing an official. The five-day talks may end on Oct. 9; the fourth round concluded on Sept. 18.
To give further impetus to the talks, Canada's Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu will visit New Delhi later this month with a 300-strong business delegation. Sidhu and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met in Mumbai last month to review progress. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Canada around December, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said last month.
The negotiations, first launched in 2015, were paused and relaunched several times — most recently frozen in 2023 after then-prime minister Justin Trudeau alleged a potential Indian link to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a claim India dismissed as "absurd." The two countries agreed in November 2025 to resume formal talks, following Modi's meeting with Carney on the margins of the G7 summit in Kananaskis last June. Bilateral goods trade declined 8.23 per cent to $7.95 billion in 2025-26; about 2.9 million people of Indian origin live in Canada, alongside more than 427,000 Indian students.
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