The recent inclusion of the renminbi in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights is a major victory for the People’s Bank of China, which for years has claimed that the Chinese currency deserves to be in the club of top reserve currencies.
It is also a victory for the Europeans, who after the global financial crisis departed from the tough line advocated by the US, arguing that the RMB should be included in the SDR even though China applies controls on its capital account and intervenes massively in the exchange rate. The view in Berlin, Paris and London is that China has implemented a number of liberalising reforms over the past years, which should be rewarded and further encouraged.
Although the internationalisation of the RMB has developed rapidly since 2009, the fact is that there are a number of institutional factors – the market turmoil at the beginning of 2016 is a symptom of this – that hinder its ascendancy. This is reflected in its limited usage compared to the weight of the Chinese economy, the second largest in the world, and the first in purchasing power parity terms.