Digital yuan Photo:CFP

The People's Bank of China (PBC) vowed to include six more cities into digital yuan testing, and the current number of cities that can use digital yuan has increased to 17, the central bank said on its official website. 

The six newly added cities include municipalities of Tianjin and Chongqing, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province, Fuzhou and Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province, and Hangzhou, the city that will host the 19th Asian Games in East China's Zhejiang Province.

In addition, multiple digital yuan trial settings in Beijing and Zhangjiakou in North China's Hebei Province during the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games will also be brought into the next trial. 

Chen Bo, director of the Digital Finance Research Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Tuesday that since the first round of digital yuan testing in 2017, different functions, processes and flaws of the system had been identified, and the operations among PBC and multiple local governments had been optimized. 

By the end of 2021, China's digital yuan trial scenarios surpassed 8 million and the overall accumulated trade value hit 87.565 billion yuan, which proved the stability, accessibility and applicability of digital yuan system, said Zou Lan, an official from PBC, at a press conference held by the State Council on January 18.

Chen pointed out that the trade value of digital yuan so far was expected after several rounds of tests. "Various advantages of digital yuan system had been confirmed and the next goal for the trial should be focused on the users engagement and make it closer to people's daily lives," Chen noted.

The central bank reaffirmed the relations between digital yuan and the general public, and vowed to make digital yuan take a more important roles in the operation of the country's business environment, support economic development and increase the safety of doing business. 

Global Times