The “RMB - Going Global Forum” held in Rome on Aprile 16^th, 2015, in the presence of distinguished members of the Bank of China, who have been expressing their views on development and internationalisation strategy of RMB (renminbi), as the Chinese currency.

 

As known, China is the second global economy and this position may or shall be explained also by thinking of RMB’s strategic role in international trades, in so far as it has been considered, in accordance with international statistics, the fifth mean of payment over the world.

 

Bank of China, as key of success of RMB, has issued the following two indicators in order to measure its worldwide use:

- “Cross Boarder Index”, referred to commercial transaction to and from China;

- “ORI RMB Offshore”, referred to investment, also in form of RMB obligations.

In such regard, Mr. Riccardo Monti, in quality of ICE Chairman, highlighted the close association between investment and commercial flows, by this way explaining the complementarities between the above-mentioned indicators.

In this context, Italy should feel positively enhanced by China, particularly in the field of leases, food, technological environment and pharmaceutics; this should lead to a policy of promoting the Italo-Chinese partnership that already exists. Moreover, it should be considered that in Italy there are 135 Chinese enterprises, employing 13.000 workers, with obvious uplifting effects on Italian labour market.

 

Notwithstanding the positive and still growing results revealed by the above-mentioned indicators, RMB could be not still strictly qualified as an international currency:  what is missing is the liquidity in international context. How to reach this global level?

Mr. Cao Yuanzheng, in his quality of Chief Economist of Bank of China, identified the following two methods: offshore policy and clearing bank.

With reference to offshore policy, it should be considered that, on 2009, China created the following two development methods:

- “Shangai Method”: Bank of China acts as an intermediary agent for settlement service;

- “Hong Kong - Macao Method”: settlement is carried out directly from banks.

The last is the most effective, due to the fact that, by eliminating the intermediate stage, global enterprises profit from cutting the related costs.

As regards clearing bank, the reference is to a network of banks in which Bank of China acts like a counterparty that regulates all the financial transactions in RMB made by the banks of the clearing circuit.

 

In Europe, offshore market in RMB has been strongly supported by some local governments, like United Kingdom, France, Germany and Luxembourg; however, in accordance with the opinion expressed by Mrs. Teng Linhui, Deputy General Manager of Bank of China, these countries shows several reasons of this support. In UK offshore market is, in itself, based on foreign currencies, so this explains the support of RMB; in France and Germany, instead, enterprises and operators called upon investment services in RMB; at last, Luxembourg is the greatest European resource in RMB due to the higher investment level.

In this context, Italy is absent, but the operators are confident: as said by Mr. Wang Hanbin, Deputy General Manager of Bank of China, all roads lead to Rome, but it is also true that Italy must be able to lead to China as well.

BLB Law Firm can only agree.

Over so many years, our Firm is supported by its Asian Desk to deal with both Chinese and Italian companies’ commercial needs, also by planning the related cross boarder investments.

That is why it is more necessary than ever to count on full convertibility of RMB, for the internalisation of which any economic operator can and shall make its own contribution.

 

Dott.ssa Paola Perinu

BLB Law Firm