A delegation of close to 300 business representatives, led by Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu, is set to travel to Mumbai and Bengaluru starting Monday — a mission Ottawa describes as its most extensive trade outreach to India in more than three decades, unfolding as both governments work toward finalising a trade agreement before the year closes.
Scheduled to run from October 12 through October 17, the Team Canada Trade Mission was announced by Global Affairs Canada. The statement outlined plans for roughly 300 Canadian business delegates to accompany Sidhu on a trade mission to India, where they would meet government decision-makers and industry figures to pursue commercial opportunities in aerospace, agri-food, and clean technology, with the stated aim of broadening trade ties, drawing in new investment, and supporting employment back home.
Sidhu noted that the pathway described would serve as the mechanism for growing bilateral trade with India to a target of $70 billion by 2030.
Four industry groupings — aerospace and space, clean technologies and energy transition, information and communication technologies, and life sciences and agri-food — are represented among the businesses making up the delegation, the statement noted. Forestry and wood products have been designated among the priority sectors for the mission by the Trade Commissioner Service, whose programming for the initiative spans business-to-business meetings, site visits, and briefings delivered by Canadian trade commissioners.
Talks under the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement framework had reached their fifth round — convened in Ottawa across the five days spanning October 5 to 9 — before the mission got under way. No details from that round have been made public by either side.
On the margins of the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting in Milwaukee, held on October 1, Sidhu and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal held a face-to-face discussion in which both sides took stock of how the negotiations had been advancing.
With parallel negotiations already under way across several fronts — including one with the United States, where disagreements over tariff policy and India's oil procurement from Russia have strained bilateral ties — the visit arrives at a point when India's foreign-policy schedule is being pulled in multiple directions. Over the coming decade, Canadian trade policy is oriented toward doubling the share of exports flowing to partners outside the United States, even as the country navigates ongoing commercial tensions with the Trump administration.
Figures released by the Canadian government put the combined value of goods and services exchanged between Canada and India at C$30.4 billion over the course of 2025. On the export side, Canada shipped C$3.9 billion worth of goods to India — vegetables, mineral fuels and oils, and wood pulp among the leading categories — while the flow running in the opposite direction reached C$9.7 billion, with precious stones and metals, machinery, and pharmaceutical products accounting for the bulk of Indian merchandise arriving in Canada.
Figures from the statement put Canadian direct investment flowing into India at C$11.4 billion for 2025, with the corresponding flow of Indian capital into Canada recorded at C$9.7 billion across the same period. Figures from Export Development Canada place the combined India-related holdings of Canadian pension funds and asset managers at roughly C$108 billion as of 2025.
Structured as government-led delegations, the Team Canada trade missions operate through Global Affairs Canada's Trade Commissioner Service, connecting businesses — with a particular focus on smaller and mid-sized enterprises — to opportunities in overseas markets. Trade negotiations under the CEPA framework resumed after diplomatic relations between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Prime Minister Modi were rebuilt following a period of strain that had set in during 2023.
