Bankers are expecting a faster internationalization of the Chinese currency whose cross-border trade settlement volume is already witnessing rapid growth, participants at a forum in Shanghai said Tuesday.

Cross-border yuan settlement reached 346 billion yuan (US$55 billion) in the first three quarters in Shanghai, up 41 percent from a year ago, Lu Xiao, vice general manager of the Shanghai branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, told the 2nd Annual China Trade and Export Finance Conference, which opened yesterday.

At the Shanghai branch of China's biggest bank, cross-border yuan settlement surged 82 percent to 48 billion yuan during the first nine months, with the number of contributing companies rising from last year's 700 to 1,000, Lu revealed.

Shanghai is on the forefront of the yuan's globalization - it was among the first, alongside four other cities in south China's Guangdong Province, to trial the settlement for trade in 2009.

Pei Yigen, head of Citi Transaction Services of Citigroup China, said an increasing number of South Korean and Japanese companies are accepting yuan in their trade with Chinese companies but the key drivers for the rising yuan demand remain corporations from Europe, China's largest trade partner.

To match China's rising economic clout, the liberalization of the yuan needs to be speeded up, Cynthia Chen, head of product management at Shanghai Branch of HSBC China, told the two-day forum.

The yuan capped its permitted trading band for most days this month and reached a 19-year high yesterday.

Related

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• Global yuan trade settlement continues to rise

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