ASEAN pilot area to promote int'l RMB trade

Edited and translated by People's Daily Online

Beijing, Nov.2 (PD Online) --As the first overseas pilot area of Cross-Border RMB Trade Settlement, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, should continue to encourage and support the RMB's cross-border use in regional trade investment, said Li Lihui, president of Bank of China, at the China- ASEAN Financial Cooperation and Development Leaders Forum.

Li said that the RMB enjoys a relatively stable currency value and a higher acceptability, and it is of great significance to expand the scale and scope of RMB flow in helping regional enterprises to avoid international monetary exchange rate risk, lower assets mismatch risk, avoid multi-exchange loss and promote trade and investment facilitation.

He pointed out that as the first overseas pilot area of Cross-Border RMB trade settlement, ASEAN should continue to encourage and support RMB's cross-border use in the regional trade investment to establish a smooth cross-border flow mechanism of RMB. ASEAN should also further improve the RMB's cross-border pay channels, enrich the RMB's cross-border financing and investment products and offer a perfect, safe and quick cross-border financial service to the trade investment in the region.

It is understood that China has signed bilateral currency swap agreements with many ASEAN countries since 2009 and jointly established the regional reserve pool in Asia with a total scale of 12 billion US dollars, significantly enhancing their capability to avoid and dissolve liquidity and international balance problems. To offer comprehensive, qualified and efficient financial services to trade investment enterprises within the China-ASEAN region by means of mechanism guarantee and product innovation, the Bank of China set up a China-ASEAN RMB business center in Guangxi in 2010 and a commodity finance center in Singapore this year.