India, Canada to push bilateral trade to $20bn in the next five years

Montreal: India and Canada have resolved to achieve a $20-billion turnover in trade in goods and services in the coming five years, union minister of commerce & industry, Kamal Nath, said in Montreal on Monday.

According to an official release issued here, Nath said that Indian investment in Canada had picked up substantially in the last few months.

So far the Aditya Birla group company, Hindalco, has acquired Novelis for around $6 billion, Nath said. In April, the Essar Group acquired Algoma Steel for $1.7 billion. Last year, the Tata group acquired Teleglobe, a telecom company, and the Birla''s picked up Minacs Worldwide, a business process-outsourcing firm.

According to the minister, this trend is likely to continue and that "more Canadian companies will invest in India, to exploit the synergies that exist between the two sides."

Kamal Nath is on an official visit to Canada, from June 16 to 18. He held bilateral meetings with David Emerson, minister of international trade, Canada, and Dalton McGunity, premier of Ontario, besides holding bilateral talks with the premier of Quebec.

He also said that India and Canada have also concluded negotiations for a bilateral investment protection agreement to provide an impetus to the two-way investments.