BEIJING, April 12 (Xinhua) -- China's renminbi, or the yuan, registered further internationalization and broader use abroad in 2019, with its role in facilitating global trade enhanced, according to the Bank of China (BOC).

Market entities, both at home and abroad, showed positive expectations for the renminbi as a global currency, the BOC said in its white paper on the renminbi's internationalization in 2019, after it surveyed over 3,000 companies and institutions in 28 countries and regions.

About 80 percent of the surveyed firms will consider seeking funding in renminbi, while nearly 70 percent are planning to raise their proportion of yuan use, said the paper.

Infrastructure of the offshore yuan market continued to improve in 2019, and overseas financial institutions can provide a wider range of products including settlement, financing and investment, said the BOC.

In 2019, the bank's cross-border renminbi settlement reported a total volume of 7.32 trillion yuan (about 1.04 trillion U.S. dollars), with its cross-border renminbi clearing volume at 434 trillion yuan.