On Tuesday, Shanghai residents used digital yuan to buy fruit at a market. China has held large-scale tests of its digital currency since October, with trials in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Chengdu. Photo: cnsphoto

Beijing's financial regulator announced on Tuesday that 40 million yuan ($6.27 million) digital yuan (or RMB) will be given away to local residents as the city moves to conduct a trial of the country's sovereign digital currency.

According to the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration, 40 million yuan worth of digital RMB will be separated into 200,000 red packets with 200 yuan each, and will be given away by raffle. 

Local residents can join the raffle by registration and win the red packets which can be used in about 2,000 stores in the capital city of Beijing. Registration for the raffle will begin on Friday.

According to the statistic provided by Journal of International Trade magazine, 150 million yuan of digital RMB had been given away as of the end of March. The People's Bank of China, the central bank, earlier said that the test places and scenarios of digital RMB are increasing in an orderly way, and the total number of test places rose to 11 by October 2020. 

Trialing of digital RMB was also conducted in Shanghai in March. Last year, the digital currency was tested in Shenzhen, Suzhou and Xiong'an New Area.