Ottawa: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks with the Canadian leadership on matters concerning security and international issues of major interest for both sides.
Talking about the Prime Minister's visit, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said on Wednesday this is a historic milestone because it's the first time in 42 years that an Indian Prime Minister has come for a stand-alone bilateral visit.
"And, therefore, we are focused on ensuring that this visit sets a trajectory which will reflect the new strength in our bilateral ties. We are focused on several broad areas for example: energy, cooperation in the energy sector is a major aspect of our bilateral ties; in addition, agriculture. Our third aspect would be skilling and education. All these are sectors, which the Prime Minister has identified as major areas for our diplomacy for development. In effect, we see Canada as a partner of our development efforts," said Akbaruddin.
"Of course when two leaders meet, they will go beyond these issues and one of the issues that both India and Canada have a common approach to is security matters, this includes as open societies we face threats. How we can work together in dealing with these threats will also be an issue? Finally, they will discuss international issues of major interests for both Canada and India," he added.
Akbaruddin said New Delhi expects substantive outcome from the Prime Minister's visit.
"Of course, Ottawa is not the only stopping Prime Minister's visit to Canada. He will also visit Toronto and Vancouver," he said.
When asked to comment on Prime Minister Modi's focus on 'Make in India' initiative, Akbaruddin said the former will make personal pitch for it and added that India will work towards easing opportunities for investments by Canadian investors.
"Unfortunately, the investment from Canada to India is much below potential. This is only approximately about five billion dollars and, therefore, Prime Minister will be meeting leading Canadian pension funds in Toronto. These pension funds have a corpus of more than 200 billion and our effort is to ease their investment opportunities in India and we will also have some institutional efforts in this manner," he said.
Prime Minister Modi arrived in Ottawa earlier on the third and final leg of his three-nation tour.
During his three-day stay in Canada , he will hold talks with his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper on a wide range of issues, including nuclear energy, trade and investment.
Prime Minister Modi, who arrived here after concluding a successful visit to German, will also reach out to the Indian diaspora in Toronto and Vancouver.
