Canada’s Minister of International Trade to visit India, will meet Piyush Goyal

|HT|

Canada’s Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development Mary Ng will visit New Delhi later this week, making her the first member of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet to travel to India in over four years. Ng is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Friday for a two-day visit, during which she will meet Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.

Her visit is part of the renewed emphasis on completing a pair of trade deals between the two nations. A release from Canada’s foreign ministry, Global Affairs Canada, said Ng will hold a hold a Ministerial Dialogue on Trade and Investment. “India offers extensive opportunities for Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs to introduce their innovative and world-class products and services to a dynamic and growing market,” it added.

No Canadian minister has visited India since Trudeau’s ill-fated trip in February 2018.

Ng’s visit will be significant in that respect. “Our government is committed to diversifying trade across the Indo-Pacific region and creating more opportunities for Canadian businesses to export their innovative products and services. Canada and India already share strong trade and people-to-people ties, and I am committed to further strengthening our bilateral commercial relations, including through this women-led virtual trade mission and my upcoming trip to India,” Ng said. Ng spoke to Goyal on February 24 and “discussed advancing bilateral trade between the two countries and welcomed further engagement on negotiations towards a Canada-India comprehensive economic partnership agreement and a Canada-India foreign investment promotion and protection agreement”, according to a statement released then.

Ng made the announcement of her visit while inaugurating the first women-only virtual business mission to India hosted by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in partnership with the Canada-India Business Council.

Ng and Goyal had met in person on October 12 last year in Sorrento, Italy, on the margins of the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)