File photo shows a worker counts Chinese currency yuan (renminbi) at a bank in Linyi, East China's Shandong Province. Photo: Xinhua

The yuan maintained its position as the fourth most active currency - accounting for 4.61 percent - in the global payment system in June for the eighth consecutive month, new data show.

Analysts are optimistic about the yuan's internationalization, with China's status as a major economy and trading country providing broad prospects.

The yuan accounted for 4.61 percent in global payments in June, with the US dollar at 47.08 percent, the euro at 22.72 percent and the pound at 7.08 percent, according to data released on Thursday by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a global payment services provider.

The total value of global payments in June fell 3.23 percent month-on-month, while the value involving just the yuan only decreased by 0.22 percent, per the SWIFT data.

Analysts said that an increase in the degree of a currency's internationalization is usually accompanied by an increase in a country's economic strength and international influence.

The yuan overtook the yen as the world's fourth most active currency in global payments in November 2023. Its share in global payments has continued to grow, from less than 0.1 percent in 2010 to the current 4.61 percent.

Maintaining stable economic growth and strengthening trade and investment exchanges with other countries provide a foundation for the yuan's internationalization, Zhao Qingming, a Beijing-based veteran financial expert, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The yuan accounts for a large proportion of payments and settlements in China's foreign trade. As China's foreign trade continues to expand, the yuan will be used more in international trade, analysts said.

In the first half of 2024, China's foreign trade rose to a new high of 21.17 trillion yuan ($2.9 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 6.1 percent, according to customs statistics.

In the first quarter of 2024, the yuan cross-border payment system processed 1.871 million transactions, up 36.37 percent year-on-year, amounting to 40.49 trillion yuan, an increase of 60.83 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by the People's Bank of China (PBC), the country's central bank, on June 28.

Cross-border yuan settlements of trade in goods accounted for 24.4 percent of all goods trade cross-border settlements in the first nine months of 2023, the highest level in recent years, according to the PBC report.

Efforts should be made to increase the share of the yuan in global financial transactions, Tu Yonghong, a professor at the International Monetary Institute at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"The first step to promote the internationalization of the yuan is to expand and increase its use in international trade settlements," Tu said.

Global Times