China to 'allow full yuan convertibility' by 2015
Decision will depend on state of global economy, says former central bank chief
China will probably take the groundbreaking step of making the yuan a fully convertible currency as early as 2015, former central bank governor Dai Xianglong said.
"If nothing unusual takes place, there will be a breakthrough in three to five years," Dai said in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin yesterday, referring to the liberalisation of the country's capital account.
"The decision will also hinge on the condition of the global economy."
Dai, the chairman of the National Social Security Fund, is the first senior mainland official to give a tentative timetable in public for the yuan's full convertibility.
He was the head of the People's Bank of China between 1995 and 2002 before he became mayor of Tianjin.
Dai began overseeing the 870 billion yuan (HK$1.07 trillion) national pension fund in 2008.
The full convertibility of the yuan was put on the PBOC's agenda in 1996, but Beijing has never unveiled a timetable for its implementation. All that officials would say was the capital account would be liberalised when the timing was right.