You see, in any period of negotiation there's always a balancing act. You know that you have to sacrifice to gain some other things. In a win-win situation, it all depends upon how we view it overall as the negotiation.
As I pointed out in my comments, it's a building up of a relationship rather than just a client-supplier relationship. As a partner, how do we partner together in creating a value? I'm talking about value that will sustain, in the future, for the generations to come, a system or an understanding whereby we not only gain economically but gain also in some of the other key challenges and issues facing both, with similar traits socially, economically, and culturally. How can we work together in addressing some of those key challenges also?
With regard to a win-win situation, if we look at it from that perspective, India needs what Canada has in terms of infrastructure, in terms of resources, in terms of technology, in terms of the education sector. There is a list of all these sectors where it's been already identified that Canada is going to gain.
For example, on the education front, our student migration has increased. Now we are sitting at 23,000 students of Indian origin in Canada. It was previously 12,000. It's a significant jump. International students are contributing close to $7 billion to $8 billion to the Canadian economy.
Whether it's a resource sector, or an energy sector, or an ICT sector, or a mining sector, on that front there is obviously a lot of gain for Canada. As well, India is one market, but through India there can be access to other markets as well.
India's key strength today is that half of the population is under the age of 25. If we look at China, China's average age is around 38 or 39. India's average age is around 25. It's less than 30. It's a young demographic. Looking to the future, how are we going to fill the needs of whatever skills shortages we are talking about? How are we going to fill that gap? If we look at it 20 or 30 years down the road, Canada has to rely maybe 70% or 80% on immigration skills coverage versus how we are filling that gap today.
I think overall this relationship has to be looked at with a holistic view rather than a stand-alone view.