It has been almost 18 months since Jordan Reeves, Consul General of Canada arrived in India. And all this time, the Indian-Canadian bilateral talks have been in new high as well. In 2017 alone, four Canadian Ministers have visited India, Reeves believes this has lot of do with Canada’s increasing appreciation of India as an important trade partner.   Before being appointed as Consul General in Mumbai, he served as senior trade commissioner in Saudi Arabia, with concurrent responsibility for Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. Prior to his role as senior trade commissioner, he was in Ottawa to work as a policy adviser to the assistant deputy minister for international business development and was selected to serve on a team supporting the department’s work on Canada’s Global Markets Action Plan, which was released in 2013. He has a long-standing relationship with Asia where he served for nine years with various countries like Taipei and China. 

What is the value of trade between India and Canada?

The present trade between both countries is in the range of USD 8 billion. This is very small but there is huge potential for both countries to see it increase substantially.

Which are the priority sectors for Canada in India?

Agricultural products have a huge potential. For Canada, this is one area where the potential is large, both in terms of meeting India’s food security, as well as providing it the nutritional supplements that are usually in short supply.

In fact, our biggest agricultural exports to India are pulses which accounted for US$1.2 billion. Politically, food security bill is important to India. On the other hand, there is a great scope for Canada here in India due to food security bill. We can offer both technology and farm products. In fact, we could bring in our expertise on the entire food chain, which could increase incomes for farmers, and provide the country with more value-added inputs. It would also reduce the huge wastage of food in the country.

The new entrant in agri space is Canola oil and we are optimistic that the demand of this product will pick up in India. Agriculture is our priority sector followed by energy sector and innovation.

There are lot of work done by AGT (This is one of the largest suppliers of value-added pulses, staple foods and food ingredients in the world. The company has been doing good business with India and also have an office based in Mumbai) to develop health properties. These developments will benefit India. There is a lot of opportunity in R&D and we are looking at exploring this enormous opportunity.