Beijing will continue to promote the internationalization of the yuan and further leverage Hong Kong’s role as a center for offshore transactions, aiming to align the currency’s share of global payments with China’s share of global gross domestic product, according to a prominent former senior official. .

“The internationalization of the yuan will help stabilize the global supply chain,” he said, suggesting that China should improve yuan settlement services to facilitate the use of the currency in emerging sectors, such as as cross-border e-commerce.

The yuan’s share of global payments has increased steadily in recent years, reaching a record high of 4.74 percent in July, according to data from the Society for Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications (Swift).

It actually weakened to 2.93 percent in October, but remains the fifth most active currency for global payments by value after the US dollar, euro, pound sterling and Japanese yen.

Prompt payments data is a major indicator of the relative status of international currencies, along with other measures such as frequency of use in foreign exchange markets, commodity trading and government foreign exchange reserves.