THE Canadian Minister of International Trade, Mr Edward Fast flew down to New York last Friday and met the Indian Commerce Minister, Mr Anand Sharma and resolved the Foreign Investment Protection Agreement and Bilateral Social Security Agreement. Both agreements can now be signed at an opportune time. Mr Fast also confirmed that Canada has delinked the SSA from FIPA.

Mr Sharma raised the issue of constrained supply of Potash from Canada to the Indian buyers. He said that the Government of Canada should view this matter from a strategic perspective and urge the Canadian businesses to enter into long term agreements with the Indian buyers on commercial terms.

The Indian Minister underscored the need to convene the meeting of the India-Canada CEO Forum at an early date so that the agenda for positive engagement between the businesses of the two countries could be furthered. He strongly raised the problems being faced by professionals of the Indian IT industry in obtaining appropriate visas for Canada. He said that this was limiting services trade between the two countries. In this regard, he asked Minister Fast to sensitize the relevant Canadian authorities to remove impediments to the movement of IT professionals from India to Canada. Minister Fast said that the Canadian government had recently changed its policy and under the revised guidelines Canada was giving appropriate multiple entry visas if the passports were of 10 year validity.