India, Canada start next round of FTA talks

The 10th round of negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement between India and Canada started today, the commerce ministry said.
"Both sides discussed issues relating to goods market access," the Department of Commerce tweeted.
The previous round of negotiations was concluded here in March 2015.
Both sides also discussed issues relating to sanitary and phyto-sanitary (concerning plants and animals) and technical barriers to trade.
The negotiations for the agreement, officially dubbed as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), were launched in November 2010 to boost bilateral trade and investments.
Liberalisation of norms for the services sector and phasing out of taxes on maximum number of goods traded between the countries are some of the contentious issues in the proposed pact.

The 10th round was earlier scheduled to be held in Canada, but could not take off because of elections there and lack of traction on some key issues.
The proposed pact seeks to eliminate or reduce duties on goods, open services sector and facilitate investment proposals.
The two-way trade dropped to USD 6.14 billion in 2016-17, from USD 6.25 billion in 2015-16.