The yuan's use as a leading trading currency continued to expand during the year as Frankfurt, Ger., became the first continental European financial centre for direct yuan settlements.
Workers in a Chinese factory used by Apple have hit out at a proposed 80,000 yuan ($12,167) settlement.
Third, promoting the yuan as a settlement currency will not solve China's problem of external imbalances.
"Trade settlement in yuan will make it more convenient for both Chinese and foreign firms who conduct China-related exports and imports," said Xu Weimin, chairman of Shanghai Silk Group, who sold goods to China Products Holdings, a Hong Kong company, in one of the contracts signed on Monday.
The rapid growth in the use of the yuan outside China, whether for trade settlement or investment, has been from a minuscule base.
China's State Council said the yuan could be used for the settlement of trade between the factory-rich Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas and the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.
In July , 2009 when I was thrown in jail for the so-called "Gong Meng tax evasion" and when people from all walks of life made donations to help pay the fine imposed on Gong Meng, our volunteers in the south were sending a settlement of one million yuan ($165,000) to the home of a baby victim.
Given that many of those deals just shuffle cash between Chinese companies and their subsidiaries in Hong Kong, there is much less than meets the eye to the yuan's stature as a trade-settlement currency.Even more telling is the yuan's standing as an investment currency.
Even German banks send customers with complex, pan-European affairs to their Luxembourg offices.The Chinese have another reason to beef up in Luxembourg: it has established itself as the largest centre for yuan lending, deposit-taking, investment funds and securities-settlement in the euro zone.
