Washington: India today stands as the fastest-growing major economy in the world and offers a combination of scale, sustained growth, a young population, expanding consumption and rapidly deepening capital markets, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while seeking investement from Canadian entities.
Addressing prominent members of the Indian business community in Toronto, Sitharaman said, “For Canadian investors with long time horizon, India offers a combination that is difficult to match: scale, sustained growth, a young population, expanding consumption and rapidly deepening capital markets.”
India’s transformation is structural, driven by rapid urbanisation, a growing middle class and world-class digital infrastructure, which are creating new opportunities across virtually every sector of the economy, she said.
The finance minister also highlighted the role of India’s digital ecosystem in transforming access to financial and commercial services.
The country’s digital infrastructure has dramatically reduced the cost of access while expanding the reach of financial and commercial services.
By transaction volume, UPI is the world’s largest real-time payments system and has become an important instrument of financial inclusion, efficiency and innovation.
There are significant opportunities here for collaboration with Canadian banks, fintech companies and regulators – not only in payments, but in shaping the next generation of digital financial infrastructure, she said.
Highlighting the growing India-Canada economic partnership, she said, the Indian diaspora in Canada is a strategic bridge between the two countries.
This is a community that sits inside Canadian boardrooms, on the trading floors of Bay Street, inside the risk committees of the pension funds, she said.
Sitharaman said India-Canada bilateral ties have undergone a remarkable transformation in recent times, supported by shared democratic and pluralistic values, expanding economic engagement, high-level interactions and strong people-to-people ties.
Referring to the agreement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in June 2025 to reset bilateral ties, she said the two countries have reaffirmed their commitment to a future-focused strategic partnership.
This was further advanced during Prime Minister Carney’s visit to India early this year, which formally launched CEPA negotiations, a CAD 2.6 billion uranium agreement with Cameco, the adoption of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ as the overarching framework of the renewed strategic partnership and a joint declaration of ambition to more than double two-way trade to CAD 70 billion by 2030, she said.
The finance minister said the bilateral partnership was increasingly moving beyond capital flows towards deeper institutional engagement.
“Capital markets are only one dimension of a modern financial partnership,” she said, underlining the scope for broader economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.
