A recent Brazilian business event in New York provided the ideal setting for an informal survey on what has become an increasingly hot topic in global markets – the internationalisation of China’s currency, the renminbi.
The attendees, who included some of the top traders of Brazilian commodities, were asked how much of their business with China, if any, they were conducting in renminbi. The answer? Mostly blank stares.
No one can deny that the internationalisation of the renminbi has a certain sense of inevitability about it. If China is to become the world’s biggest economy, then the renminbi must also become a global currency, if not the premier one.