Modi-Carney meet on Monday to see launch of free trade agreement talks

Signing of 10-year uranium supply pact also on agenda

At their meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney are expected to cap their efforts of the past nine months to “reset” ties between the two countries by announcing the formal launching of the negotiations to ink a free-trade agreement by the end of the year.

 

Carney is on a four-day visit to India, his first to the country since being elected the PM in March last year. The two leaders will also commit to double bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030. 

The two sides are set to seal a long-pending 10-year uranium supply agreement between Cameco Corporation, one of the world’s largest publicly traded uranium producers, and India’s Department of Atomic Energy. 

India and Canada have suffered because of US tariffs, and under Carney, Ottawa has undertaken “a comprehensive trade diversification strategy and seeks to double exports to markets beyond the US over the next decade”. Doubling its two-way trade with India to $50 billion by 2030 is part of that strategy. 

Addressing the Canada-India Forum in Mumbai on Saturday, Carney said his country is a food and energy superpower, and seeks greater cooperation with India in these sectors, as also in nuclear cooperation as it is the “most reliable long-term supplier of uranium to building large-scale and small modular reactors”.

 

“We could also be India’s strategic partner in critical minerals and metals for your manufacturing, for your clean tech, and for your nuclear industries,” Carney said. “Canada is clear-eyed about the world as it is, and we are equally determined to forge a new path in it,” Carney said.

 

Announcing the visit on February 26, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it “comes at an important juncture in normalisation of India-Canada bilateral relations”. Indian officials have said the two countries are likely to sign agreements in sectors spanning energy, critical minerals, education, research, innovation, AI, defence, culture, aerospace, parliamentary cooperation and agri-foods.

 

There has been a significant de-escalation in bilateral ties in recent months. After their meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Canada in June 2025, Modi and Carney met on the margins of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg on November 23, where they agreed to launch negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to double bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030.

 

Over the past few months, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Canadian counterpart Anita Anand have kept in touch, meeting on five occasions since September when she visited New Delhi. Jaishankar was in Canada in November. Canadian National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) Nathalie Drouin met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in New Delhi in September as the two sides have tried to overcome the bitterness in their relations in 2023-24.

 

Canadian Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu was in India in November, and its Energy Minister Timothy Hodgson visited India to participate in the Indian Energy Week 2026 held at Goa at the end of January. Doval visited Canada in the first week of February.

 

In 2024, total bilateral trade in goods between the two countries was worth $8.98 billion, while services trade stood at $14.22 billion. Portfolio investments from Canada into India stand at more than $75 billion. Over 600 Canadian companies have a presence in India. A delegation of 21 university presidents from across Canada visited India from February 2-6, 2026.

 

An estimated 392,810 India students studying in Canada as on December 31, 2024, forming the largest group of international students in the country. With an estimated more than 1.8 million Indo-Canadians and approximately 1 million non-resident Indians, Canada is home to one of the largest and most vibrant Indian diasporas in the world.