The Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will enter into force provisionally on September 21, 2017. While the entry into force will be called "provisional", it will cover all aspects of CETA under the jurisdiction of the European Union (as opposed to its member states). The impact of the provisional implementation is that over 90% of the Canada-EU Agreement will be in effect from September 21. CETA sets new international standards for trade in goods and services, non-tariff barriers, investment and government procurement.

While there are outstanding issues relating to the investment chapter to resolve, this will not interfere with the immediate implementation of the rest of the Agreement. Certain EU members (e.g. Belgium) have concerns about the investor state dispute mechanism. CETA will definitively enter into force once the parliaments in all the member states of the EU ratify the text.

In the meantime, trade between Canada and the EU will flow more freely. There will be immediate tariff relief for imports into Canada from all the 28 EU countries. Similarly, Canadian exports to the EU will benefit from September 21.

In 2016, Canada exported $40 billion and imported $61 billion from the EU in goods. In services, Canadian exports to the EU were $16 billion in 2015, with imports totalling $22 billion.

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