Argentina announces settlement in yuan

Argentina and China recently signed a currency swap agreement allowing Argentina to use renminbi to pay for Chinese imports worth between $790 million and $1 billion, in an effort to speed up Argentina's pace of Chinese imports in the coming months and improve the efficiency of its authorization. In addition, the agreement will help strengthen Argentina's foreign exchange reserves and boost bilateral trade. The move also lifted the renminbi's share of China's cross-border payments from near zero in 2010 to a record 48 per cent at the end of March, and for the first time the currency was used more than the dollar in Chinese cross-border transactions.