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Andrew Holness: Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness praised UPI and said that his country wants to replicate India's success. For this, he held a meeting with officials of Digital India Foundation (DIF).

UPI Success: UPI, launched by the Government of India to promote digital payments, has become increasingly popular among users in the last few years. UPI is also being used across the seven seas. Apart from the country, UPI is being used extensively in seven other countries. Another example of this was seen on Thursday, when Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that he wants to replicate the success of the South Asian country in digital payments by taking advantage of India's technological advancement in the digital payment sector.

Target set to become a digital society

Holness, who is on his first visit to India, held a meeting with officials of the Digital India Foundation (DIF) to understand the need for the structure of the digital system. He said, "Jamaica has set the target of becoming a digital society as one of its various development goals. We have already established our National Identification System, which is similar to your Aadhaar system." Holness said, "His country is trying to develop strong partnerships with Indian technology, especially public infrastructure and 'Unified Payment Interface' (UPI)."

How will it help in building a digital economy?

He said, 'The roundtable was to discuss how India's digital public infrastructure and UPI infrastructure can help Jamaica in building a digital economy.' During the visit of the PM of the Caribbean country, an agreement was also signed for cooperation in digital public infrastructure and connecting online payment systems. He said, 'We hope that we will be able to implement it very soon...' Talking about his visit, Holness said that India is a wonderful and diverse as well as integrated and very innovative country.

He said, "I think India is doing a very good job and Jamaica wants to partner with India in these areas." Describing India as the "pharmacy of the world", he said Jamaica wants to increase cooperation in the areas of healthcare, medicine, agriculture, security and defence and technology. The two sides also agreed to join the Global Biofuel Alliance. He said, "These are issues of energy security, energy efficiency and climate change. These three are issues that countries like Jamaica and India are facing. Working together with India in this regard will be very useful."

Amid the passion for cricket in both the countries, the Prime Minister hoped for more cooperation with the world's largest cricket nation. He said India can help bring back the glory of cricket in the Caribbean country. He said, "This is also true for athletics. That is why we have signed the MoU on sports, we will cooperate with India to help prepare your runners." 

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