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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

China’s global currency dream revived after Trump back-pedals on trade war threats

China is not a currency manipulator, US president says, while admitting US dollar is too strong

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The yuan/dollar rate was set at 6.8651 on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said the US currency was too strong. Photo: Reuters
Alice Yanin Shanghai
China should enhance and strengthen the role of the yuan as an international reserve currency, a senior Chinese central bank official said in an article published hours after US President Donald Trump said China would not be labelled as a currency manipulator.

The article by Zhu Jun, head of international department at the People’s Bank of China, published in the official Shanghai Securities News on Thursday, reflected Beijing’s regained confidence in boosting the global profile of the yuan – a longstanding target that had been put on the back burner since late 2015 when Beijing’s priority shifted to stemming capital outflow and the currency’s depreciation.

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Zhu said China should work hard to promote the yuan’s international use partly because that its inclusion in the Special Drawing Rights currency basket of the International Monetary Fund is not permanent, and that the composition of basket will be reviewed in 2020.

“It’s a short time since the yuan was included in the SDR currency basket and it’s still in the start-up phase as a freely usable currency and as an international reserve currency,” Zhu wrote. “The yuan needs many more years of effort to demonstrate its advantage as an international reserve currency.”

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