Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) organized an interactive luncheon Sunday with Hon. Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, to discuss the Minister’s recently-concluded official visit to India.

Minister Oliver was in India in January 2014 and visited Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. His visit to India coincided with Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC)’s India Mission 2014. The mission visited ten cities spread across eight Indian states. Minister Oliver hosted a breakfast for ICCC’s India Mission delegates in Mumbai. The delegates also participated in a business reception in Mumbai where Minister Oliver was the keynote speaker, and an interactive session that Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University had organized with the Minister in Gandhinagar.

Speaking at the interactive session, Minister Oliver said, “History has made Canada and India friends. Commerce is making us partners. And more than a million people of Indian origin now call Canada home. So demography, quite literally, is making us family.”

            Lauding the ICCC for its role in fostering bilateral relations, he said, “The work of your Chamber matters. Both our governments recognize the importance of the Canada-India partnership. Since 2008, Indian ministers have visited Canada 10 times. Canadian ministers have made a total of 13 visits to India – including my second official trip last month.”

 “Canada is becoming a 21st century energy and resource superpower. So in New Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, my mission was to spread that message. To advance our economic partnership with India. To promote Canada as a safe, secure, reliable market and an attractive destination for capital investment.”

Enumerating the growing economic ties between the two partners, Minister said, “Fourteen percent of growth in world energy demand from 2011 to 2025 is expected to come from India alone. Canada, meanwhile, is becoming a leading supplier of energy and resources and needs to diversify its markets. India needs what we have and wants to diversify its sources of supply. And that strategic complementarity creates an historic opportunity.”

Naval Bajaj, President, ICCC, in his remarks, emphasized the tremendous response the India Mission 2014 received in the ten cities that it visited. “There is tremendous interest for Canada amongst Indian entrepreneurial class. In every city that we went, especially in South India, we were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response,” he said.

He informed the participants at the interaction that the main focus of the mission was on three sectors – agriculture and agrifoods, education and energy – and in all these three sectors the Chamber was able to organize meaningful conferences that explored the growing bilateral opportunities.