Report proposes offshore RMB settlement centers in Taiwan

Chiu ChengHsiung, former chairman of Bank SinoPac, spoke at the symposium. Provided to China Daily

The report - Research on Cross-Straits Financial Reforms - was released at the Cross-Straits Financial Cooperation symposium over the weekend in Beijing. It was co-hosted by Renmin University of China's International Monetary Institute and Taiwan-based Bank SinoPac.

The report said that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan are important to each other as economic and trade partners, and in the future their cooperation will only deepen. Increased financial cooperation would be an important breakthrough, it said.

To achieve that, both sides should first discuss how to improve systems for financial cooperation, then make innovations toward more RMB products. The next step is to push forward RMB valuation and settlement during cross-Straits economic and trade exchanges, and finally to enlarge cooperation between the financial industries of both sides.

He Qing, professor of finance at Renmin University of China's School of Finance, said the first step is for Taiwan to build an offshore RMB settlement center, and then think about building an offshore RMB market based on the deepening of both sides' cooperation in finance. Afterward, they could think about creating a center for bonds and notes. In the end, with the development of economy and cooperation, Taiwan could think about building a stock market, He said.

Chiu ChengHsiung, former chairman of Bank SinoPac, said trade between Taiwan, the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong would benefit a lot the sustainable development of Taiwan's economy, which is the basis for developing an offshore RMB market.