Yuan reform pace remains 'unchanged'
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Lagarde said reform of the global monetary system will be under the mandate of Germany, which is organizing a team to examine the issue within the G20.
Beijing has shown interest in discussing global monetary reform and Sarkozy said on Friday that China will hold a seminar on the subject at the end of March.
Xia Bin, an academic member of the central bank's monetary policy committee, said the process of yuan internationalization needs to be promoted gradually, but it also depends on greater exchange-rate flexibility for the yuan, and a loosening of capital control.
Louis Kuijs, a senior economist at the World Bank China Office, said earlier that China should not relax capital-inflow controls any time soon, but should wait until the currency regime became more flexible.
A report by HSBC showed that a growing number of domestic and international enterprises are willing to use the yuan for settlement.
In April 2009, the State Council decided to set up pilot projects in five cities to use the yuan for settlements of trade with Hong Kong, Macao and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It was expanded to 20 provinces and cities about a year later. On Dec 15, the yuan was directly traded abroad for the first time at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, viewed as a milestone on the way to the currency's internationalization.
The central bank also launched a pilot program on Jan 13 to allow domestic companies to use the yuan to settle direct outbound investment for new ventures, mergers, acquisitions and stake purchases overseas.
In addition to quickening the process of renminbi internationalization, China has also faced mounting external pressure to appreciate its currency.
Analysts said deciding the currency's value will not be a simple task.
"So we will keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable whilst improving the flexibility of the currency regime," Zhou said.
The yuan exchange rate against the US dollar was 6.5781 on Friday, a 17-year record high. The currency has appreciated against the US dollar by almost 4 percent since June.
