Canada West Foundation Blog

Or, ‘Hello India’ as ‘Namaste’ is the traditional Hindi greeting.

Why an Indian greeting for India?

This past Sunday, Indian flags were flying across Canada to celebrate India’s 63rd year as a sovereign nation. This past June, during the G20 Summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hosted a formal dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. After roughly forty years of cool (some might even say cold) relations between India and Canada, events such as these symbolize a marked warming, and celebration of Canada’s relationship with India. India currently ranks 10th amongst Canada’s trading partners but, it is relationship which is proving increasingly important to Canada for a variety of strategic, and trade reasons including: its potential as an expanding market for Canadian goods, and an opportunity for Canada to expand its knowledge economy.

Acknowledging India’s potential as a new market for Canadian goods is nothing new. India is home to a population of 1.25 billion (second only in total population to China) of which an increasing number are middle class. India’s growth has been no less than astounding; with a GDP growth rate that has averaged over 10% the last few years. Both of these facts have contributed to increases in commodity trade by 23%, 116% and 306% in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan respectively over the past decade.

But, where the potential really lies in doing business with India is not in our lentil and wheat production. India offers a great opportunity for Canada to increase its trade of knowledge and expertise. This is especially apparent in the areas of resources and energy production and infrastructure.

At current rates of economic growth India is demanding that its own energy sources increase production by more that more than 4.3% a year. However, it is faced with a growing carbon footprint and a depleting water source.  Canada can help with a focused and bottom-up approach to share expertise and technology in areas including hydro-electric power and nuclear energy, areas which Canada is a long-time global leader in research and development, as well as biomass and clean coal technologies, where Canada is working towards becoming a global leader. The added bonus being that if India chooses to, while it is developing these energy capabilities, it has the opportunity to develop energy infrastructure that is cleaner than the energy systems in many western countries, something which is an environmental benefit for all.

In regards to infrastructure, one of the biggest challenges facing India and its ability continue on its current trajectory of tremendous growth is its domestic infrastructure, or more accurately, its lack thereof.  But, every problem has a silver lining and in this case, it’s one that offers western Canada opportunities. After all, who is the world is better at building pipelines than western Canadian companies?

At a recent conference put on by Calgary Economic Development (CED) in conjunction with the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) entitled “Doing Business in India”, I had the chance to hear of one such story of trade expertise. Enbridge Technology Incorporated’s Bill Trefanenko told how Enbridge was recently contracted out by an Indian firm to help it develop a gas pipeline to take natural gas from India’s south east coast clear across the country to where they refine petrochemicals on the west coast.

These are just two examples of where western Canadian-Indian knowledge trade has potential.

But, if we are going to be able to take advantage of these opportunities we need to ensure that we build the cultural bridges necessary, we need to better understand India’s business culture. Over 925,000 Canadians identify themselves as Indo-Canadian.  We have the connections, we need to use them! Calgary Economic Development and the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s conference was a good start towards this.

Other recommendations for how we can understand and improve business relationships with India include enhancing our focus on building bi-lateral linkages. This could include trade delegations, perhaps similar to the New West Partnership mission that went to Shanghai this past spring. Research and educational institutions also have a large role to play in tapping the Indian market for educational services, and building institutional linkages.

So, we have some work to do if we are going to take full advantage of the opportunities India presents when it comes to western Canadian trade.  But, we would be amiss, when we looked west to only look as far as China’s shores.  Who knows how far western Canadian trade with India can go, and we’re not going to know unless we take the opportunities that are in front of us here and now.

Posted by: Candice Powley