Lentils topped Canada’s ag exports to India in 2021
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Canada and India’s trade representatives will include agriculture in their discussions when they meet later this year.
At the end of the sixth Canada-India Ministerial Dialogue on Trade & Investment, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng and Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal committed to discussing agriculture in October, when Minister Ng leads a trade mission to India.
The ministers agreed to “forging partnerships to take advantage of the complementarities in such sectors as agricultural goods, chemicals, green technologies, infrastructure, automotive, clean energy, electronics, and minerals and metals,” a May 10 readout says.
Canada and India currently do not have a bilateral trade agreement.
The two countries began negotiations in 2010. Those talks ended in 2017.
Since 2022, India and Canada have been negotiating an Early Progress Trade Agreement.
This kind of agreement pertains to specific sectors. The one between Canada and India includes agriculture.
Minister Ng is confident it’s “not going to be years” before Canada and India sign some sort of agreement, she said on May 8, The Canadian Press reported..
India was Canada’s 18th largest market for agri-food and seafood products in 2021.
That year, Canda exported $546.3 million of agri-food and seafood goods, good for about 1.4 per cent of India’s market share.
The top Canadian ag exports to India that year were:
- Lentils - $510.4 million
- Solid lactose and lactose syrup - $6.8 million
- Almonds - $6.7 million