Uzbekistan eyes UPI integration to boost trade and tourism with India

Unified Payments Interface (UPI), operational across seven countries (Bhutan, Nepal, France, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the UAE) is now catching the interest of many more countries, who are weighing it as a payment option. And Uzbekistan happens to be one of them. The
country first showed interest in UPI operations when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Tashkent in September. Recently, there was a follow-up on this. “In January this year, our ambassador Sardor Mirzayusupovich Rustambaev met Lakshmi Kant Rao, executive director, Reserve Bank of India, in Mumbai,” an Uzbek government official told Business India. “During the meeting, they discussed further strengthening of the ties between the two countries and setting up UPI, amongst other things.”

UPI payments will benefit Indian tourists visiting Uzbekistan, and also those who have trade ties. “This system would allow Indian visitors to make mobile payments while travelling in Uzbekistan,” contended an official of Uzbekistan’s ministry of economy & finance.

Integration of UPI

The RBI has plans to expand UPI to 20 odd countries more by 2028-29. Representatives from the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, the National Agency for Project Management (NAPM), and the National Bank of Uzbekistan (NBU) have been holding discussions with FM Sitharaman regarding the potential integration of UPI. The FM also met the Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and discussed the viability of various bilateral projects, including those in the energy sector, petrochemicals, digitalisation, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. The development of transport corridors between the two nations was also a key topic during the talks.

Under the initiative of the Uzbekistan-India Business Forum, the two countries signed an inter-governmental agreement on the promotion and mutual protection of investments. The forum also yielded agreements on granting phyto-sanitary permits for six additional types of agricultural products grown in Uzbekistan. Further, the countries discussed utilising preferential loans from India’s Exim Bank to finance social projects in Uzbekistan.

India and Uzbekistan have strong trade ties, which touched $1 billion in 2024. The two countries have a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) to promote economic co-operation and investment. They are also working on a preferential trade agreement (PTA) to enhance trade relations.