Richard Phillips (photo courtesy Grain Growers of Canada)

 

   The federal government has released the results of a study looking at the benefits of a free trade deal with India.

    "This is a huge potential deal," says Richard Phillips, executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada. "We already have some well established relationships. Our pulse industry, for example, has been doing tremendous work in India...but a free trade deal would remove all the tariffs on all of our agricultural products."

    "India's a diverse country with numerous ethnic groups and so in different parts of the country there would be different opportunities," he says.

    To put it in perspective, Phillips notes Canada's population is around .3 percent of India's. He notes the middle class in India is equivalent in size to the entire population of the United States, adding there's a growing demand for higher quality, healthier food, which Canadian farmers could produce.

~ Monday, October 4, 2010 ~