India and Canada Speed Up Talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
India and Canada are speeding up talks on the proposed India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), a wide trade deal covering goods, services, investment and more.
Canada's Minister of International Trade is expected in New Delhi with a negotiating team for the sixth round of talks. This comes only about a month after the fifth round in Ottawa.
Both sides hope to announce the conclusion of the deal during a proposed Prime Ministerial visit to Toronto and Ottawa on 11-12 December 2026. Legal checking (vetting) and formal approval (ratification) would follow.
Main open issues: predictable market access and lower import duties for Canadian pulses, wider access for services, and more visas for Indian workers and students. The two sides also need common ground on labour, environment and digital trade rules.
India also wants steady access for its farm products and farm inputs, and wants concerns over SPS (food safety and plant and animal health) and technical standards addressed.
The two countries aim to more than double two-way trade in goods and services to Canadian $70 billion a year by 2030, from Canadian $30.4 billion in 2025. The deal may also cover energy, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and critical minerals supply chains.
Free Trade Agreements: Concept and WTO Framework
A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is a deal between two or more countries to remove or sharply cut import taxes (tariffs) on most of the goods they trade with each other. India gives its bigger trade deals different names, such as CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), CECA (Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement) or ECTA (Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement). A CEPA is usually the widest kind: it covers not just goods, but also services, investment, movement of professionals and rules on things like digital trade. Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, such deals are allowed under Article XXIV of GATT for goods and Article V of GATS for services, as long as they cover "substantially all" trade.
India and Canada are negotiating a CEPA, the widest type of trade deal. That is why the talks go beyond tariffs on pulses to cover services, visas for workers and students, labour, environment and digital trade.
India-Canada Relations: History, Rupture and Reset
India and Canada are both democracies and members of the Commonwealth and the G20. Canada is home to one of the largest groups of people of Indian origin in the world. Ties dropped sharply in 2023 after a serious diplomatic dispute, which India rejected, and both sides expelled diplomats. Since 2025, the two governments have been rebuilding the relationship step by step, with trade as a central pillar.
The sixth round of CEPA talks and the planned December 2026 visit show how quickly the relationship has moved from a freeze in 2023 to an active trade push. Both countries also want to depend less on a single big market, given uncertainty over United States tariff policies.
Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs): Types and the WTO Framework
A non-tariff barrier (NTB) is any trade hurdle, other than an import tax, that makes it harder or costlier to sell goods in another country. Examples are strict food safety rules, product testing, labelling demands, licences and quotas. Many such rules have a fair purpose, such as protecting health. They become "barriers" when they are stricter than needed or are used to block imports unfairly. Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures are one of the most important types: "sanitary" means human and animal health, and "phytosanitary" means plant health.
India wants the CEPA to address Canadian SPS and technical standards that could block its farm exports. Canada, in turn, wants predictable rules for selling pulses to India. Clear SPS chapters in the deal could reduce such disputes.
- Agreement: India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
- Upcoming round: sixth round, in New Delhi; the fifth round was held in Ottawa
- Target for conclusion: during the proposed Prime Ministerial visit to Toronto and Ottawa, 11-12 December 2026
- CEPA talks formally launched: March 2026 (Terms of Reference signed in New Delhi)
- Bilateral trade: Canadian $30.4 billion (2025); target Canadian $70 billion a year by 2030
- Key issues: pulses market access, services, visas for workers and students, labour, environment, digital trade, SPS and technical standards
- Other areas: energy, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, critical minerals supply chains