Advisors: Add Deng portrait to banknotes
(Reuters/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-03-14 08:49

Some members of China's top advisory body proposed adding the portraits of Deng Xiaoping and Sun Yat-sen to the next range of banknotes.

Renminbi banknotes [newsphoto]

Delegates to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference said that that Deng Xiaoping, architect of the nation's economic reforms, and Sun Yat-sen, father of the revolution that toppled the last emperor in 1911, should grace the new bills, the China News Agency reported .

"We owe our sustained, rapid economic growth and constantly rising international status over the past decades to Deng Xiaoping, who initiated the reform and opening drive in the late 1970s," delegate Duan Huijun wrote in his proposal.

He suggested issuing ￥200 notes and using Deng's portrait on them. 

The image of Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, is currently on most Chinese banknotes.

Sun already graces the T$100 notes in Taiwan.

"Dr Sun has been admired by people across the Taiwan Strait and Chinese all over the world and he certainly deserves a place on the RMB notes," said adviser Hu Zhibin, referring to China's currency, the renminbi.