China to expand trials for yuan's international transactionsAgence France-Presse - 25 December, 2009
China's central bank said it will expand a trial for yuan cross-border settlements to the entire country, in the latest step toward making the Chinese unit an international currency.
The number of companies permitted to settle international transactions in yuan also will be increased, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement posted on its website.
The joint statement issued by the central bank and the country’s banking, securities and insurance regulators gave no timeframe for the expansion.
The move was designed in part to “spread the foreign exchange risk exposure faced by companies going abroad”, the statement said. Beijing announced in December last year it would start allowing the yuan to be used to settle international accounts on a trial basis, a move towards increasing the unit’s international use and making it convertible.
The government this year gave the green light to 365 firms in Shanghai and four cities in the southern province of Guangdong to use the yuan to settle transactions with Hong Kong, Macau and the Association of South East Asian Nations. At the end of September, the value of transactions using the Chinese unit had reached more than 100m yuan ($ 14.6m), official data showed.
