Canadian Mp Expects Dramatic Rise In Trade With India

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Canadian MP expects dramatic rise in trade with India

Gurdeep Singh Mann

Tribune News Service

Fatehgarh Sahib, January 24

Punjabis constitute 40 per cent of student population going overseas for studies from India, 30 per cent are from Gujarat, while rest 30 per cent are from other parts of country, said Patrick Brown, the Member of Parliament from Barrie constituency of Ontario, Canada. Patrick was here at Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Engineering College (BBSBEC) to deliver lecture on the “educational employment opportunities for Indians in Canada.”

He expected that number of Indian students going to Canada on student visas would double and Indo-Canada trade volume would treble in the next five years. He suggested Indian students to specialise in the area of petroleum, hardware, green technologies and pharmaceutical industry, which are in a great demand abroad. He stressed that Indian engineers are not only going to build infrastructure for India but also for the rest of world. “The Indian Government should concentrate on better educational facilities right from school level so that students don’t face a problem while pursuing their higher education even on foreign shores,” he added.

India and Canada are the two countries that registered least impact of global economic recession. This was primarily due to the fact that two economies are basically strong and self-sufficient. Unlike the US policies of anti-outsourcing, Canada is actually interested in increasing number of visas to skilled people, he observed.

Expressing concern over “not-so-high” volume of trade between India and Canada, Patrick said while trade between India and Canada last year was $5 billion, the same between India and Australia was $22 billion. “Trade can grow much more if better policy is given priority, especially in the sector of education. Indo-Canadian relationship is like a diamond mine, we need to dig deeper to get the real diamonds,” he added.

Brown, who is also the chairman of the Canada-India Parliamentary Association, added that Punjab is a key area for growth of Indo-Canadian ties.