Piyush Goyal calls for linked BRICS payment systems, trade in local currencies (Lead)

New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday urged BRICS member countries to link their payment systems, encourage trade in local currencies, and make digital trade more accessible globally.

Addressing the inaugural session of the BRICS Business Forum 2026, the minister said India has taken significant initiatives in laying out a digital public infrastructure.

"Today, UPI is also accepted in 11 countries, and I would urge the BRICS member countries and partner countries to link our payment systems, trade in each other's local currencies, make digital trade global, and build together for the future of emerging technologies," he said.

India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has crossed over 250 billion transactions a year, representing more than half of the transactions by volume across the world.

BRICS today represents almost one-fourth of global trade, and India is an important pillar of intra-BRICS trade, Goyal said. "Engineering goods and electronics account for the largest segment of India’s manufactured exports. India is also known as the pharmacy of the world."

He highlighted that BRICS cooperation would create jobs, wealth and prosperity for countries that represent half of the global population and 40 per cent of the global GDP.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who also addressed the event, said that resilience has become central to every nation’s economic strategy, along with the need to foster and promote sustainability through deeper cooperation and stronger partnerships.

He said BRICS brings together economies with diverse yet complementary resources, markets, capabilities, and experience and the grouping provides a platform to compare approaches, strengthen substantive arrangements and widen the choices available to member countries.

The External Affairs Minister said this year marks a milestone for BRICS as the grouping completes 20 years of institutionalised cooperation. He said BRICS has evolved substantially over the years in terms of its membership, agenda and mechanisms of cooperation. He added that India’s chairship this year seeks to carry this evolution forward under the theme, "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability".

The business forum was held on the sidelines of the two-day BRICS summit, hosted by India from Saturday. The summit is taking place amid growing global economic uncertainties triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, the US-Iran conflict leading to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Donald Trump administration's tariff policies.

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