11	Minister of Small Business and Entrepreneurship for Ontario Harinder Takhar, was in India in early January this year along with Minister for Economic Trade and Economic Development for Ontario Sandra Pupatello, to participate in AutoExpo 2008. Takhar held talks with Indian car manufacturers for collaboration in the automobile sector, which is the dominant sector in the province and the whole of North America. He met with senior officials at Maruti, Mahindra and Mahindra and Ashok Leyland to explore opportunities of collaboration, as the automobile sector is doing well in India.

He was especially interested in the State of Haryana which is the leader in car manufacturing in India and held talks with its Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Chandigarh, its capital, for working together in the sector.

Besides, the minister also held talks with Wipro an Indian IT giant who is keen on setting up a plant in Canada.

Having learnt about Tata's entry as a car manufacturer in the small segment, Takhar was confident in Canada's role in providing the transmission system and also open to collaboration on this front.

Minister Takhar was invited by the Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal to be a keynote speaker at the Punjab NRI annual gathering at Chandigarh. He was keen on Punjab and Ontario working together in promoting trade. He said Punjab needed to work on attracting foreign investors to the state for which it required the much-needed vision.

His saw his visit to India as a follow-up activity of the automobile delegation that came along with second-term elected Premier of Ontario Dalton Mcguinty in early 2007 and was here to take the talks to a higher level.