By Gurmukh Singh
Toronto, Aug 27 (IANS) Canada will formally inaugurate its trade office in Kolkata Sep 2.

Gerald Keddy, parliamentary secretary to Canada’s International Trade Minister Stockwell Day, will open the office in the presence of West Bengal Industry Minister Nirupam Sen and others.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had announced two new trade offices at Hyderabad and Kolkata at the first annual gala of the Canada-India Foundation here last year. The Hyderabad office was opened by International Trade Minister Stockwell Day in January.

The Kolkata office was to be opened by Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon in March, but his visit was cancelled because of the Indian general election.

With the inauguration of another office, Canada will now have three full-fledged trade offices in India - Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

“Kolkata is a major trading hub in eastern India, with mining, coal and other companies headquartered there. Canada’s presence there will definitely help trade between the two countries,” said former Canada-India Business Council president Kam Rathee.

With the two-way trade between India and China is still less than $5 billion, Rathee told IANS: “Canada is lagging other countries in its initiative towards India. The proposed foreign investment protection agreement is yet to be signed and the nuclear agreement may take a lot of time.”

The two countries have already exchanged many drafts to sign a nuclear agreement on the lines India has signed with the US and France.

Canadian companies are eyeing the multi-billion nuclear market in India. Canada is looking to Europe and Asia, particularly China and India, to lessen dependence on the US which accounts more than 80 percent Canadian trade.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)