Vietnam allows use of yuan at Chinese border
By Dat Nguyen August 30, 2018 | 12:09 pm GMT+7
A bank clerk counts Chinese yuan banknotes at a branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Huaibei, Anhui province. Photo by Reuters /Stringer
Vietnamese can trade in yuan at the border with China, the State Bank of Vietnam has decreed.
It means the transactions that traders and residents have been doing informally in the yuan for long along the border gets legal sanction from October 12.
Economist Nguyen Tri Hieu told VnExpress International: “There have not been any specific regulations on using the yuan in transactions. This will be the first.”
The new regulation would also allow Chinese tourists to pay for goods and services in their own currency in border areas, he added.
Vietnam recently became China’s largest trade partner in Southeast Asia. Bilateral trade in the first half of this year rose 17 percent year-on-year to $46.82 billion, with Vietnam’s exports accounting for $16.62 billion.
Exports to China had risen 61.5 percent against 2016 to $35.46 billion in 2017, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, as cited by Bloomberg.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade said it is likely that two-way trade would hit $100 billion this year.