Yes.
You've heard from other witnesses already on the desirability of the agreement and on some of the priority sectors to be included in a deal. We fully support the agreement and agree with everything that my colleagues from CIF have said, as well as from previous presentations....
What I'd like to focus on instead is the broader context of the bilateral negotiations and what I consider to be one of the most important preparations that we need to make, which is the preparation for domestic understanding of the importance of a stronger Canada-India relationship.
You've already heard from other witnesses that the level of two-way trade and investment between Canada and India is really very low, compared with that of our other trading partners, at $5 billion a year two ways. India ranks quite low as one of our major trading partners, which really offers an opportunity for us to take advantage of.
What I'm trying to say here is that even without a free trade agreement, the opportunity for rapid growth in two-way trade is not difficult to achieve. We've seen this already in the education sector. I believe one of my colleagues has presented figures showing that the number of Indian students coming to this country has I think quintupled in the last five or six years.
Because we are starting from a low base in many other sectors, the prospect for rapid growth is very great indeed, and that can take place even while we are negotiating a free trade agreement. We should indeed have a very high level of ambition for the CEPA, but there is a feeling, which my colleague has articulated already, that the 2013 target may not be achievable, for a variety of reasons. That should not deter us from making efforts to expand the trade relationship, even outside of the trade agreement.
This brings me to what I think is the principal challenge we have right now in building the bilateral trade relationship, and that is to basically to get more companies and more Canadians interested in India in the first place. Even if we are successful in concluding a deal by 2013, if we don't have the companies, the people, the bodies, and the agencies that are able to take advantage of it, we won't be able to reach that target of $15 billion—or even $30 billion, as Rahul has suggested—so a lot of work is going to have to be done in the meantime to get our SMEs and our agencies involved and interested in India.
In addition, we need to think very hard about public support for an FTA with India, as well as the other trade and investment instruments that we're looking at; I'm referring also to the foreign investment protection agreement. As we all know, a similar deal with China had been floated—and has now passed, of course—but it generated a huge amount of public antipathy and even opposition. I think we need to do better on an India deal and explain to Canadians why a FIPA is essential, why it benefits Canada above all, and, likewise, why an FTA is important.
You may have heard from my colleague and board member that Canadians are wary of free trade agreements with Asian countries. In fact, only a minority of Canadians, based on our national opinion polling, support FTAs with Asian countries, and that includes both India and China, so we cannot let a bureaucratic negotiation process run ahead of the effort we need to work on with regard to public opinion.
Finally, on the question of domestic preparations, we also need to have a clear statement and understanding of the role of state-owned enterprises investing in this country. This is, of course, a very current issue with respect to China, but we know that the Indians, particularly in the energy sector, are also looking to invest in this country. ONGC is a state-owned enterprise and they will be watching the decisions on Nexen and Petronas very closely.
All of these issues are interlinked. Fundamentally, we need to get our domestic act in order so that we send the right signals and, even as we negotiate a treaty to facilitate greater trade, we have to make sure that we have the people, the companies, and the means to take advantage of that agreement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.