CNBC-TV18 said India's Commerce Ministry called the fourth Comprehensive Economic Partnership round with Canada fast-paced and substantive after Piyush Goyal met Maninder Sidhu, with both sides still aiming to lift merchandise trade toward 50 billion dollars by 2030. Mint, earlier on 18 September, said Sidhu was in Mumbai to push that fourth round toward a year-end close and a doubling of trade to 70 billion Canadian dollars by 2030.
CNBC-TV18 said the fourth round covered goods, services, intellectual property, rules of origin, sanitary rules and technical barriers, and that Goyal still saw a deal inside 2026. Mint said Canada was pushing to seal the pact by year-end and that Sidhu would meet Goyal and business leaders in Mumbai while negotiators worked that fourth round. Both desks describe an unfinished CEPA, not a ratified treaty.[1], [2]
CNBC-TV18 cited the ministry saying Goyal still spoke of lifting bilateral trade to 50 billion dollars by 2030, and DGCI&S figures putting merchandise trade at 8.66 billion dollars in FY 2024-25, with 4.22 billion dollars of exports and 4.44 billion dollars of imports. Mint quoted Sidhu aiming to more than double two-way trade to 70 billion Canadian dollars by 2030 from 30.4 billion dollars in 2025, and named aerospace, artificial intelligence, clean energy and critical minerals as the growth list. The two ceilings sit in different currencies and baselines; neither desk converted them into one number.[1], [2]
Mint wrote that negotiations launched in November 2025 after terms of reference signed during Mark Carney's March visit to India, and that Sidhu would go on to Manila on 21-22 September for ASEAN-Canada talks. CNBC-TV18 said discussions follow terms of reference signed by the trade ministers on 2 March, that Goyal had taken more than 150 Indian business leaders to Canada in May, and that Sidhu had then spoken of unlocking 300 billion dollars of non-US Canadian exports. The sequence is a rebuilt channel, not a first handshake.[1], [2]
