India and Canada Aim to Sign a Trade Deal (CEPA) During a Planned Prime Ministerial Visit to Ottawa
India and Canada are holding the fifth round of talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), a wide trade deal covering goods, services and investment. The round is being held in Ottawa from 5 to 9 October 2026.
Both sides want to sign the CEPA during the Indian Prime Minister's planned visit to Canada, tentatively set for 11 to 13 December 2026.
The visit is timed just before the G20 Leaders' Summit in Florida, United States, in mid-December 2026.
The two countries have set a goal of raising bilateral trade (trade between the two countries) to CAD 70 billion by 2030. (CAD means Canadian dollars.)
The talks restarted only in 2026. Terms of Reference (the rulebook that fixes what the talks will cover and how) were signed in New Delhi on 2 March 2026, after the relationship had nearly broken down in 2023.
India-Canada Relations: History, Rupture and Reset
India and Canada are both democracies, members of the Commonwealth and the G20, with one of the world's largest Indian diasporas living in Canada. The relationship has swung between warm friendship and sharp breakdowns. The worst recent break came in 2023, and both governments have been rebuilding ties step by step since 2025. A trade deal is the biggest part of this reset.
The fifth CEPA round in Ottawa and the plan to sign the deal during a December 2026 Prime Ministerial visit show that the 2025 reset has moved from repairing diplomatic links to building economic ones. A signed CEPA would be the strongest sign yet that the 2023 rupture is behind the two countries.
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. Each country still keeps its own tariffs for countries outside the deal. A CEPA is India's name for a wider kind of FTA. Besides goods, it also covers services, investment, rules on standards and often intellectual property.
The India-Canada deal under negotiation is a CEPA, so it will cover far more than tariffs on goods. Services and investment matter a lot here, because services trade and Canadian pension-fund investment are already bigger than goods trade between the two countries.
Group of Twenty (G20)
The Group of Twenty, or G20, is a club of the world's biggest economies whose leaders meet once a year to discuss the world economy, trade, climate and development. It has 21 members: 19 countries, the European Union and the African Union. India and Canada are both founding members. The country holding the yearly presidency hosts the summit and sets its agenda.
The planned Prime Ministerial visit to Ottawa is timed just before the G20 summit in Florida. Leaders often bundle bilateral visits around summits like the G20, and both sides have aimed to wrap up the CEPA talks by then.
- Fifth round of India-Canada CEPA talks: Ottawa, 5 to 9 October 2026
- Fourth round ended in New Delhi on 18 September 2026
- Planned Prime Ministerial visit to Canada: tentatively 11 to 13 December 2026
- G20 Leaders' Summit 2026: United States presidency, Miami, Florida, 14 to 15 December 2026
- Trade target: CAD 70 billion (about US$50 billion) by 2030
- CEPA Terms of Reference signed: 2 March 2026, New Delhi
- CEPA talks history: started 2010, stalled 2017, relaunched March 2022, paused 2023, restarted 2026
- India-Canada goods trade: about US$7.95 billion in 2025-26 (India's data)