Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has invited Canadian investors to step up their engagement with India, highlighting opportunities in banking, insurance, fintech, semiconductors, rare earths and other emerging sectors.
Addressing a Business Reception event in Toronto during her visit to the US and Canada, Sitharaman said India offers a combination of scale, sustained growth, a young population, expanding consumption and deepening capital markets that is difficult to match.
"India should be the place where all of us will have to really put interest, in the sense of investing both money and our attention," she said, urging Canadian investors to participate more actively in India's growth story.
Sitharaman said India's transformation was structural, driven by rapid urbanisation, a growing middle class and digital infrastructure that has expanded access to financial and commercial services.
She also pointed to the country's growing appeal as a destination for international capital, citing the International Financial Services Centre at GIFT City, which she said is emerging as a global platform for international financial institutions.
The government has progressively opened sectors such as insurance, asset management and pensions to greater foreign participation, while India's capital markets have become deeper and more sophisticated, she said.
Sitharaman said India's scheduled commercial banks are currently in strong health and that significant investment is taking place in the banking sector.
"The banking in particular, the NBFCs and their rapid growth is inviting a lot of international interest," she said, adding that several foreign banks are already operating from GIFT City and more could enter the market.
With 100% foreign direct investment now permitted in insurance and India's growing strength in fintech, opportunities for foreign capital are expanding rapidly, she said.
Sitharaman also highlighted emerging areas such as semiconductors, magnets and rare earths as sectors with significant potential for Canadian investors.
"India can also provide trusted and cost-effective supply-chain alternatives for global markets," she said, inviting Canadian investors and rare earth operators to participate more actively in the country.
The Finance Minister said the India-Canada relationship was increasingly moving beyond capital flows towards deeper institutional engagement.
She highlighted the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as an example of India's digital financial transformation. UPI, she said, has become an important instrument of financial inclusion, efficiency and innovation and offers opportunities for collaboration with Canadian banks, fintech companies and regulators.
Such collaboration could extend beyond payments to the development of the next generation of digital financial infrastructure, she said.
Sitharaman is on a US and Canada visit from August 25 to September 2. During the visit, she is scheduled to hold talks with her Canadian counterpart on deepening economic and financial ties, including bilateral investment opportunities and the ongoing negotiations for a trade agreement.
