Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank, said his bank, the second largest in China, was exploring offering renminbi-denominated trade finance credit in a practical step that could make the Chinese currency more widely used internationally.
His voice, the first from the head of a large Chinese bank, joins a chorus from senior government officials on currency matters that together reflect concerns about the stability of the US dollar and several efforts to promote the use of the renminbi more widely.
On the eve of the G20 meeting about two months ago, Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the People's Bank of China – China's central bank – published a paper proposing to replace the dollar with an international reserve currency and expanding the use of special drawing rights, a unit of account of the International Monetary Fund.