Central bank pushes yuan clearing along Belt and Road

China's central bank will continue to make more bilateral currency swap deals and enlarge the scope and scale of renminbi settlements with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, a senior official said.

Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said on Sept 21 that the nation will use bilateral and multilateral financial cooperation platforms and more flexible financial service policies to facilitate trade and investment along the trading routes.

The actual payment amount between China and the countries and regions along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road amounted to 860 billion yuan ($128 billion; 115 billion euros) between January and August.

The PBOC has signed 21 bilateral currency swap agreements with other central banks along the Belt and Road Initiative, with a total scale of 1.4 trillion yuan.

Six countries along the routes have been authorized as renminbi qualified foreign institutional investors, with a total quota of 330 billion yuan. China has also established five renminbi clearinghouses along the routes.

The Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure, service and trade network proposed in 2013, covers about 4.4 billion people in more than 60 countries and regions in Asia, Europe and Africa.

"The establishment of a sound green financing mechanism will be a systemic project that requires coordination among central authorities, local governments, financial institutions and enterprises," Chen said at the Silk Road Financial Forum, part of the fifth China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

As many infrastructure projects being built or to be built along the Belt and Road require a large amount of capital and will need to time to see financial returns, Chen says it is important to develop transportation, environmental protection, public service and infrastructure through the public-private partnerships.

Ji Yuhua, deputy director of policy research for the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, says insurance companies and regulatory authorities are keen to offer more financial support for medium- and long-term projects in countries along the Belt and Road, as capital needed by life insurance companies has an economic cycle between 30 and 40 years.

Eager to gain more financial returns from overseas markets, Chinese insurance companies also set up a 300 billion yuan investment fund last year. A considerable part of the fund has been invested in infrastructure and services along the Belt and Road.

Contact the writers at zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn