New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney on Tuesday held a telephonic conversation and agreed to build on the positive momentum in India-Canada ties while working towards concrete outcomes across key areas.
“Had a warm and productive conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney. We agreed to build on the positive momentum in India-Canada ties and work towards concrete outcomes across key areas of our Strategic Partnership, including trade, energy, technology, security and people-to-people ties,” PM Modi wrote on X after the phone call.
“Together, India and Canada are contributing towards a more stable and prosperous world,” he added.
Earlier in the day, Canadian High Commissioner to India, Christopher Cooter, termed the chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and his Canadian counterpart as “excellent” and said that the two nations never had as “good a relationship” as it is right now.
In an exclusive interview with IANS ahead of Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s official visit to India, Cooter spoke about the recent engagements between the leadership of both countries, including meetings between External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and Anand. He also talked about the upcoming visit of Canada’s Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu.
“I think it is fair to say that we never had as good a relationship as we have right now. Starting at the highest level, the chemistry between our two Prime Ministers is excellent. They have met four times in just over a year. Officials are also meeting regularly. We recently had our National Security Advisor here for discussions with his Indian counterpart, and our Foreign Minister is coming here. This will be her 10th meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister over the past year,” the Canadian High Commissioner told IANS.
“Our Trade Minister will also visit next week, leading a delegation of 300 Canadian business representatives. I believe this is the largest trade delegation we have ever taken anywhere, certainly to India. They will be here for a week, going to several cities in southern India. We have got dialogues on energy, migration and defence, and we expect a defence-related visit in the near future. We had at least six other ministers visiting India over the past year. Our Prime Minister of course came here in March. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to come to Canada in early December. At that point, we are hoping to sign our first Free Trade Agreement during that visit. Which if we can do it, it will happen at light speed, because we only really began to negotiate this in March of this year,” he added.
–IANS
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