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Speaking at the Special Ministerial Session at the 17th CII Exim Bank Conclave on India-Africa Growth Partnership, the Union Minister for Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal said that India’s experience with the digital revolution and building a startup ecosystem can help Africa immensely.

The Minister said that India will be able to offer new technologies being developed in India that will help expand trade, investment and opportunities for Africa’s youth.

Adding that the government is committed to aiding Africa’s economic resurgence, Goyal said that India’s experience in creating a startup ecosystem will help Africa. He also added that Indian startups can also help Africa’s nearly three billion people.

“India’s development partnership with Africa will be on terms that will be comfortable to Africa that will liberate its potential and not constrain its future. We want Africa to grow and prosper,” the Minister said.

Noteworthy to mention that India has one of the largest startup ecosystems in the world. With 105 unicorns and more than 70,000 startups registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the Indian startup ecosystem has soared over the last few years.

In particular, 2021 was a stellar year in terms of funds raised. Indian startups raised $42 Bn in a single year, breaking all sorts of records and minting 44 unicorns in the process. The first half of this year recorded $19 Bn in funding, minting 17 unicorns.

Amid fears of a funding winter, many startups have been looking to cut down on their costs, leading to layoffs. According to Inc42’s Indian Startup Layoff Tracker, 34 startups have laid off 11,363 employees since the start of 2022.

Talking about India’s digital revolution, Goyal said that India’s digital innovations such as UPI and now ONDC can help Africa experience its digital revolution. Goyal added that India’s own experience with a digital revolution can help Africa. “India’s experience with the digital revolution to support Africa’s growth, extend education, health, spread digital literacy and quality infrastructure could be harnessed,” the Minister added.

The government has already managed to extend UPI, with several countries interested across the world.

Nepal became the first country except India to adopt UPI as a digital payments platform back in February 2022. Right now, India is in talks with more than 30 countries for UPI adoption, according to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, with three countries already signing MoUs with the Indian government for the same.

UPI has been an exceptional success for the government. Addressing Digital India Week earlier this year, PM Modi noted that 130K UPI transactions are recorded every minute, with 40% of the world’s digital transactions happening in India.

On the other hand, ONDC looks to disrupt India’s retail by expanding the share of ecommerce in the total retail sector, as ONDC CBO Srireesh Joshi said in a recent interaction with Inc42. ONDC is already active in more than a dozen cities and targets to expand to 100 cities by the end of 2022, having onboarded some of India’s biggest ecommerce startups to date.