India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)

In September 2008, the India-Canada CEO Round Table recommended that India and Canada would benefit enormously from CEPA by elimination of tariffs on a substantial majority of the bilateral trade. CEPA would cover trade in goods, trade in services, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade and other areas of economic cooperation. A Joint Study was conducted and report came in September 2010 strongly recommending the benefits of CEPA for both the countries. Accordingly, the announcement of launch of India-Canada CEPA negotiations was made by PMs of both the countries in Seoul in November 2010 and the negotiations were formally launched by CITM and Canadian Trade Minister Van Loan on 16 November 2010 in New Delhi.

So far, ten rounds of negotiations have already taken place. The 10th Round was held in New Delhi in August, 2017.

A stocktaking CEPA and FIPA virtual bilateral meeting was held on 22nd June, 2020 between Chief Negotiators of both sides. Subsequently, on 27th Oct. 2020 a bilateral meeting was held to explore the option of an early harvest / interim agreement. In this regard, scoping paper has been shared with Canadian side, and on 19th November 2020 a DVC was held and both sides are engaged to take it forward.