Having been actively engaged with the State before the bifurcation, Canada looks forward to retaining the cosy relation with Telangana while forging new associations with Andhra Pradesh.
In the city for meetings with Chief Ministers of both States, K. Chandrasekhara Rao and N. Chandrababu Naidu, Canadian High Commissioner Stewart Beck said his country had invested in Hyderabad, particularly in the field of Information Technology, and they would continue to focus on maintaining good relations.
Several opportunities“Opportunities will now be thrown open in Andhra Pradesh as it has to come up with its own infrastructure and a new capital. This will create opportunities for us to work closely,” he said.
For the two States, Canada has a lot to offer in different fields including in sectors such as power, infrastructure, cleaner production, ports and in the area of skill development.
“Also, our country has a long history of association with India in the fields of agriculture and food security,” he said.
Mr. Beck, who has been in India since September 2010, said his country offered quality education, which had the number of students seeking to pursue higher education going up threefold in the last six years. More than 30,000 Indian students are there for different levels of studies at present.
“If you see, there were 1,80,000 applications for a wide gamut of visas including temporary resident, permanent resident and students, and we have 80 per cent approval rate,” he pointed out.
The Canadian High Commissioner will be moving out to Vancouver later this year and looks back at his term in India as one which witnessed dramatic developments. “Here, we were able to complete dialogues on fronts like political, strategic, energy and security,” he averred.
Mr. Beck did visit Hyderabad several times in the last four years and does find the city less chaotic when compared to some other cities. “This city has good infrastructure and climatic conditions, and the cuisine is just fantastic,” he quipped.
