China News Service, Beijing, August 14 (Reporter Wei Xi) The People's Bank of China released the "Renminbi Internationalization Report 2020" on the 14th. According to incomplete statistics, more than 70 central banks or monetary authorities around the world have included the RMB in foreign exchange reserves.
The report cited data on the currency composition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) official foreign exchange reserves: As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2019, the scale of renminbi reserves reached 217.67 billion US dollars, accounting for 1.95% of the total foreign exchange reserves of the indicated currency composition, ranking higher than the Canadian dollar 1.88 %, ranking fifth, which is the highest level since the IMF began to announce RMB reserve assets in 2016. The renminbi's market share in global foreign exchange transactions was 4.3%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from 2016; according to the latest statistics, the renminbi ranked fifth among major international payment currencies, with a market share of 1.76%.
The report pointed out that in 2019, the cross-border use of RMB has grown rapidly against the trend. The total amount of cross-border receipts and payments of RMB on behalf of banks in the year totaled 19.67 trillion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 24.1%, and continued to maintain rapid growth. The amount of receipts and payments reached a record high. Cross-border receipts and payments in RMB accounted for 38.1% of the total cross-border receipts and payments in domestic and foreign currencies during the same period, a record high and an increase of 5.5 percentage points from the previous year.
As of the end of 2019, the Central Bank of China has signed bilateral local currency swap agreements with central banks or monetary authorities in 39 countries and regions, covering major developed and emerging economies around the world, as well as major offshore RMB markets, with a total amount exceeding 3.7 Trillion yuan. (Finish)