China signs 14 bilateral currency swaps, to expand yuan reach

Beijing: China will further promote the use of yuan in cross-border trade and investment settlements this year while stepping up efforts to monitor yuan flows, Chinese media reported on Monday, citing the central bank.

The central bank will steadily expand the variety and scope of cross-border renminbi business and “improve the work of renminbi settlement in trade and investment,” state media said. The yuan is also known as renminbi.

Trade settled in yuan totalled 2.08 trillion yuan in 2011, while yuan settlement in direct investment reached 110.9 billion yuan, the central bank said.

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To support the yuan settlement programme, China has signed bilateral currency swaps with 14 countries and regions worth 1.3 trillion yuan, the central bank was quoted as saying.

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The central bank will explore ways to allow individuals to conduct yuan settlement in cross-border trade.

Since the global financial crisis in late 2008, China has launched a series of policy initiatives aimed at making the yuan an internationally accepted currency for trade settlement to reduce its reliance on the dollar.

As part of its efforts to increase the influence of the yuan, China first launched a yuan trade settlement scheme in July 2009 in a few cities and expanded it nationwide last year.

Reuters