Harper kicks off 6-day visit to India
Posted November 4, 2012 9:47 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in India Sunday for a six-day tour heavily focused on encouraging trade and investment with one of the world’s biggest economies.
But Harper, his wife Laureen and a handful of cabinet ministers will also get to fit in some tourism, beginning with the Taj Majal on Monday in Agra.
The iconic site is actually an elaborate marble tomb built by a 17th-century emperor as a tribute to his beloved wife.
Later in the afternoon, Harper is scheduled to participate in a business forum in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Trade between Canada and India sits at a modest $5.2 billion annually, but the two countries would like to see it rise to $15 billion by 2015.
A foreign investment and a trade deal are both still in negotiations, and the two nations have yet to agree on the strings attached to Canada selling India uranium under a two-year-old nuclear deal.
Following his trip to India, Harper will stop in the Philippines and finally mark Remembrance Day in Hong Kong.
