India and Canada will aim to conclude a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement “by the end of this year”, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Monday.
The agreement will “reduce barriers, increase certainty, unlock opportunity for exporters, investors and workers” in both countries, the Canadian prime minister said.
Carney arrived in India on Friday for his first visit to India since becoming prime minister. He held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday at Hyderabad House in New Delhi.
The two countries have also agreed on a $1.9 million uranium deal and said that they will work on building small modular nuclear reactors and advanced reactors.
The agreement has been signed by India’s Department of Atomic Energy and Canada’s Cameco, one of the world’s largest publicly traded uranium companies.
Cameco will supply 11,000 tons of the reactor fuel to India from 2027 to 2035, Bloomberg News quoted Carney’s office as saying.
The two countries have also agreed to cooperate in sectors including liquefied natural gas, critical minerals, solar and hydrogen.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the two countries hoped to reach $50 billion in trade by 2030. “Unlocking the full potential of economic cooperation is our priority,” he said.
Modi added that the two leaders discussed ways to boost cooperation in combating terrorism.
“We agree that terrorism, extremism and radicalisation are shared and serious challenges not only for both countries but for all of humanity,” he said. “Our close cooperation against them is extremely important for global peace and stability.”
Carney’s visit comes amid a thaw in diplomatic relations between India and Canada.
The relations had deteriorated sharply in 2023 after Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister at the time, told his country’s Parliament that intelligence agencies were actively pursuing “credible allegations” tying agents of the Indian government to the murder of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.
Nijjar was a supporter of Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation sought by some groups. He was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India.
New Delhi has rejected Canada’s allegations.
Ahead of Carney’s visit, an unidentified senior official in Ottawa had said that the Canadian government believed that India was no longer linked to alleged violent crimes in Canada.
However, on Monday, Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail quoted two unidentified officials as saying security officials in the country received evidence that Indian consular staff in Vancouver supplied information to allegedly assist in Nijjar’s killing.
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