Washington: Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met his counterparts from France, Canada, Saudi Arabia and South Korea and discussed furthering bilateral trade relations with the respective countries.
Goyal held the meetings with the trade ministers of the four countries on Thursday on the sidelines of the G20 Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Milwaukee.
“Met Mr Nicolas Forissier, Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness of France, on the margins of the G20 Trade Ministers Meeting,” Goyal said in a post on X.
Goyal said he and Forissier explored avenues to expand trade and investment ties, expediting the early signing of the India-EU FTA, and expanding collaboration across aerospace manufacturing in India, UPI integration, and joint innovation initiatives.
“Look forward to welcoming him to India later this year to take our bilateral economic agenda forward,” he said.
Goyal said he had a “productive meeting” with Canadian Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu and reviewed the ongoing negotiations for the India-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
The India-Canada CEPA was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in March to take bilateral trade to USD 50 billion by 2030.
“Building on our recent meeting in Mumbai, we reaffirmed our commitment to expediting negotiations and working towards an early conclusion of the agreement,” Goyal said.
The Commerce Minister said he was delighted to meet Majid bin Abdullah Al-Kassabi, Minister of Commerce of Saudi Arabia.
“We discussed progress on the India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) FTA negotiations and explored opportunities to further strengthen trade & investment ties between our two nations,” Goyal said.
He also met South Korean Trade Minister Park Jung-Sung and discussed upgrading the India-Korea Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IKCEPA), balanced trade growth, market access for Indian agricultural, pharmaceutical, and marine products, and Korean manufacturing investment in India.
