Brookfield, Bombardier, Fairfax and Solace work in India
India and Canada have revived conversation on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and hope for a decision soon on the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA or FIPA).
This was shared by India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Ajay Bisaria at a special web interaction organized by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) on 5 Oct 2020.
Both governments are even thinking of a less ambitious smaller byte size agreement which can be agreed on soon, said the envoy ‘A Webinar with Ajay Bisaria on Advancing the India-Canada Commercial and Economic Partnership’.
Bilateral trade of goods and services between India and Canada has increased to cross US$10 billion and institutional investments have expanded to over US$55 billion in 2020 from US$5 billion in 2015.
But a vast potential remains untapped between the two trading nations with strong complementarities and free-market economies, he pointed out.
“The Big story has been the Canadian investments in India by firms like Fairfax and Brookfield. India has now over US55 billion commitments from Canadian investors in the Indian economy.
“This, itself is a huge factor which defines lot of opportunities that are available in India. This money is going into infrastructure, real estate, energy, logistics and now also in Startups,” the High Commissioner said referring to the increasing capital fund investments from Canada.
Canadian investors prefer to invest in India as the Indian market offers promising return rates or IRRs in the range of 10-20% and favourable exit options compared to a mere 2-4% returns from most of the OECD countries.
Bisaria emphasised the important role of the Indian diaspora in Canada.
The Indian human capital that Canada is harnessing is a unique part of the India-Canada story. India, today is the largest source country for immigrants in Canada.
The fast-growing Indian diaspora of 1.6 million is doing exceedingly well in leadership positions in business, politics, culture, and academia.
“One other important factor is the educational opportunities,” he noted, pointing out that the 230,000 Indian students bring to Canada US$5 billion of tuition fee annually.
India and Canada have been strategic partners since Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Canada in 2015 and the strategic engagement has escalated under the Trudeau 2.0 and Modi 2.0 era since both leaders came back to power in 2019.
Committed to pluralism and democracy, and holding convergent views around reformed multilateralism and globalisation, India and Canada are principally trading nations with significant complementarities, said Bisaria.
In times of the pandemic, both sides have been engaged in conversation on vaccines, IT and digitization accelerated by the pandemic. Post pandemic, we feel there would be opportunities in about five major sectors and three new areas namely pharma, steel pipes, chemicals, Agro products, automotive parts along with traditional sectors like clothing, textiles, furnishing, furniture.
The envoy underlined Canada’s large market, US$22 billion, for public procurement of goods and services as a new and important sector.
Bisaria also expressed confidence that greater opportunities await both countries in view of India’s recent economic reforms, touted as the 2nd generation economic reforms in labor, agriculture, and FDI norms, aimed to boost manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics and offer India as an attractive investment destination and player in global supply chains.
Collaboration between India and Canada in Information Technology, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare, HealthTech, Engineering, Aviation, Transportation, Food Processing, Education, Agriculture and Agritech holds vast opportunities in the coming years, he informed.
Canada’s state-of-the-art technologies in agriculture must be leveraged by India to revolutionise agricultural production and techniques, the High Commissioner advised.
Canada has a vibrant and attractive image as an inclusive and advanced society focussing on the skill, talent and technology, and this is what makes the country a most loved destination for Indians, whether for immigration, education or business, observed Vineet Agarwal, Senior Vice – President, ASSOCHAM, and Managing Director, Transport Corporation of India Ltd.
Agarwal emphasised the vast opportunities for collaboration in logistics and infrastructure.
“India must leverage Canadian expertise in the engineering, infrastructure, and transportation space to leapfrog and develop a multimodal logistics hub with world-class railways, coastal hubs, forwarding services, cold-chains et al,” he said.
Expressing his hope for an early conclusion of a trade agreement between India and Canada, Agarwal assured that the ASSOCHAM is committed to catalysing the Indian industry’s outreach globally and will continue to support industry and government for enhancing the India-Canada business corridor.
The ASSOCHAM Secretary-General Deepak Sood hailed the active engagement of the Indian High Commissioner to strategically promote the dialogue between India and Canada.
He emphasised the outstanding presence and contribution of the Indian diaspora in Canada, and laid emphasis on fostering greater people-to-people and cultural ties as an enabler in the India-Canada partnership in the future.
“India must harness the requirement of human capital in Canada and position itself as a major supplier of manpower to Canada. For India, such a flow translates into increased remittances from Canada which lends strength to India’s domestic economy,” Sood said.
Likewise, Canada can be a good source of technical and knowledge inflow into India, especially in sectors including AI, IoT, SaaS and other advanced technologies, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, clean energy, water management and automotive.
The industry panel discussion during the webinar was led by Jagdish Mitra, Chief Strategic Officer and Head of Growth, of Indian IT giant Tech Mahindra.
While sharing the successes of Tech Mahindra in Canada, Mitra said Canada offers significant opportunities for creation and collaboration of talent pools and the Canadian government’s focus on technology, education and overall Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) creates a winsome ambiance for Indian businesses, especially in the IT sector.
Tech Mahindra has taken advantage of this and forged strong partnerships with Canadian companies across sectors including banks, manufacturing setups, oil and gas, telecom, and transportation equipment.
Tech Mahindra has three centers in Canada employing nearly 2,000 people, of which 60% are locally hired associates.
Sharing his views on the future potential of India-Canada commercial engagement, Mitra highlighted the enormous opportunities await in collaboration in the digitisation and innovation space.
“During the pandemic, digital transformation is happening at the speed of light, customers want deployment, digital scale, speed and scope. ‘Factories of the Future’ with IoT enablement, industrial solutions, automation, smart centers, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, integrating IT collaboration with telecom industry with 5G domain offer a vast space for cooperation,” Mitra informed.
Ottawa-headquartered Solace Corporation is among the Canadian businesses with a successful footprint in India.
Solace has been present in India in the data integration and scale-space since 2013, added Arvind Khurana, Regional Vice President – Indian Subcontinent at Solace, founded in 2001.
The company has offices across India in the major metro cities including Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and has been working with the Government of India, Bombay Stock Exchange, National Stock Exchange, Income Tax e-filing, and other important clients including a major Indian bank and telecom giants Jio and Airtel.
“India has a very strategic focus for us, and we have our Global Centre of Excellence based at Bangalore which helps the Indian customers as well as global customers.
“It’s all about real-time data and achieving scale in India, and that’s where we will continue to contribute to India’s Digitisation Plan by providing custom-built hardware appliances as well as software and cloud solutions,” Khurana said.
Global industrial group Bombardier has built the first private park facility in India under the Delhi Metro Project phase II project, said Rajeev Joisar, Managing Director – Bombardier Transportation which carries the Canadian flag on international markets.
The company has been providing a safe, reliable, quality transportation system in India since the year 2000. It has two world class manufacturing facilities in Gujarat, a global design engineering centre in Hyderabad, a signalling and information centre in Gurgaon, and several service teams deployed around the country.
“Bombardier has contributed to the “Make in India” story. In most of our contracts, the local businesses are present with more than 70%–75% share. In true sense, we are ‘Vocal for Local’ and ‘Local for Global’.
“We are proud to provide a platform on which more than 5 million people are traveling every day,” Joisar added.
From India, ICICI Bank has been working in the India-Canada corridor since 2003 as an important enabler of business houses on both sides looking to expand in trade and services.
It has been facilitating financial services and soft loans to incoming Indian immigrants, permanent residents and students, and businesses setting shop in Canada, said Akshay Chaturvedi – SVP & Head – Corporate & Commercial Banking, ICICI Bank Canada.
“We are the only bank that opens your account even before your landing in Canada and facilitates the activation and crediting money into the account prior to arrival.
The creditworthiness of accountholders in Indian banks is also valid for opening accounts with us in Canada. Whether you are an individual or a company, your credibility in India continues here,” Chaturvedi said.
The bank also caters to potential Canadian long-term investors through its facilities and schemes in India.
Summing up the conversation, ASSOCHAM’s Sood highlighted the capability determination and prowess of India and how the country emerged tall during the pandemic by providing humanitarian assistance and pharmaceutical supplies to countries across the globe.
“From zero manufacturing of masks and PPEs before the pandemic, Indian companies moved swiftly to manufacture articles akin not only for the domestic market but for exporting to several countries,” he added.
The Secretary-General expressed confidence that with concerted efforts from industry and government on both sides, India-Canada trade should grow 3x in the next five years, with more partnerships and joint ventures between MSMEs on both sides.
He assured the full support and collaboration of ASSOCHAM to industry and government in rigorously promoting India-Canada business ties. #trade #IT #technologies #innovation #banks #financing /fiinews.com
