India, Canada should achieve $5 bln in bilateral trade: Kamal Nath

New Delhi, June 18 (UNI) India and Canada should work to achieve five billion dollar a year in bilateral investment flows by 2012, Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath said today in the second CEOs roundtable held in Montreal.

Mr Nath, who participated in the roundtable with Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest, told the CEOs that India and Canada must seize this opportunity to significantly increase two way trade and investment flows and suggested that alongside the target of 10 billion dollars each annually in bilateral goods and services trade be achieved in five years, India and Canada should work to achieve five billion dollar a year in bilateral investment flows by 2012.

A bilateral trade target of 20 billion dollars annually in goods and services set by the India-Canada CEOs roundtable at its first meeting here in March, 2006 was reaffirmed by participants at this second meeting, the Ministry said in a statement.here.

He also expressed the hope that the completion of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations would go a long way in liberalising and enhancing trade and investment flows between the two countries.

''Its heartening that in the last few months, Indian investment in Canada has picked up substantially. Last February, the Aditya Birla Group company Hindalco acquired Novelis for around six billion dollars. In April the Essar group acquired Algoma steel for 1.7 billion dollars. Last year, the Tata group had acquired Teleglobe, a telecommunications company, and the Birla Minacs World wide, a BPO firm. This trend is likely to continue. I also hope that more Canadian companies will invest in India, to exploit the synergies that exists between the two Canadian companies,'' Mr Nath said in the statement.

Reffering to the economic scenerio in India, Mr Nath informed the Canadian CEOs that the Indian economy had grown by nine per cent and the aim was to take this growth to 10 per cent in the next couple of years.

''Growth of this magnitude would unleash demand of various kinds. We are now faced with the need for better infrastructure, particularly power, roads, energy environmental technology and raw materials. This would also open-up new opportunities for the Indian and Canadian companies to work together in these critical areas,'' he said.

''In this context, the recent visits to India by the Minister for International Trade, David Emerson and the Canadian infrastructure delegation were very useful. We need more such visits from both the sides,'' he added.

Mr Nath, who is on an official visit to Canada, earlier had bilateral meetings with Mr David Emerson, Minister of International Trade, Canada and Mr Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, besides bilateral interaction with the premier of Quebec.

India and Canada have also concluded negotiations for a bilateral Investment for a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement to provide an impeteus to the two-way investments, Mr Nath added in the statement.

UNI