|
China's renminbi has become the main currency for payments between China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, more than tripling in use over the past three years and outstripping the Japanese yen, the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar, according to data from the clearing system Swift.
The shift demonstrates that the Asia-Pacific region is at the forefront of the renminbi’s gathering acceptance as a currency for international trade settlement and investment.
CCTV’s Andy Saputra spoke to the ICBC director to look at the benefits of RMB use in Indonesia.
Saputra: "Why RMB? Why use renminbi as a trade currency, what will be the benefit?"
"I think we need to use RMB for three kinds of reasons, firstly, China has now become the second largest economy. And secondly, RMB is the second largest of trade funding currency, and the fourth largest settlement payment currency. And thirdly, now China has now become the biggest trading partner of Indonesia, so I think it's very important for Indonesia to use RMB," said Greater China Business Group Head Xin Haiyan.
Saputra: What sort of benefits will it give to the players, the importers, the exporters what do they gain by using RMB?
"Firstly it will help increase the bilateral trade between the two countries, to directly use RMB can avoid the foreign exchange risk and save some foreign exchange cost. And secondly, because Chinese government and Chinese SOE companies are just want to directly invest in overseas projects, and now Indonesia now has a strategy in infrastructure construction so I think use RMB can attract Chinese investment in Indonesia," Xin said.
Saputra: I understand you just had a meeting with the government, can you tell us a little bit about that?
"Actually, this morning we just attended a meeting held by the trade ministry and the topic is about the government plan to issue a policy to ask the importers and exporters to use RMB in bilateral trade between the two countries. And also the Indonesia government plan to do this because it helps to solve the problem of the trade deficit in the bilateral trade between the two countries," Xin said.
Saputra: How realistic is it for the currency to become an global currency?
"For me, I think RMB is very realistic to be one of the international currency. If we say there are two standards that were put by the IMF, first is the trading entity, now China is the most trading entity so for this point, China has fulfilled their standards. And secondly most be freely used, now RMB is the second largest payment currency and under the frequent item, RMB can be freely converted. So I think RMB is becoming one of the global currency now," Xin said.
中国公共新闻网摘编：GAN JADE |
