HK is ideal offshore renminbi centre

For overseas businesses wanting to boost their trade and investment ties with the mainland, Hong Kong is the ideal offshore RMB centre.

According to Monetary Authoriy Chief Executive Norman Chan in his speech during the RMB Australasia Summit in Sydney, from 2000 to 2010, the Mainland's exports to Australia increased fourfold to US$30.7 billion, while imports from Australia increased tenfold to US$60.3 billion.

Mr Chan said: "With China becoming the second largest trading nation and economy, specifically with external trade surpassing US$3 trillion in 2010 and direct investment activities also growing significantly over the past decade, the use of renminbi in cross-border transactions is likely to expand very rapidly in the future."

"The wider use of renminbi will greatly enhance all these bilateral trade and investment flows as it helps reduce currency conversion costs and exchange rate risks," he said.

"With the strong support of the Central Government for Hong Kong to develop into an offshore renminbi business centre, a policy which has been enshrined in the National 12th Five-Year Plan, Hong Kong is ideally placed to serve financial institutions and corporates from Australia and other economies which are expected to have continually expanding trade and investment links with China in the years ahead."