BEIJING: China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) said on Saturday that it had signed a agreement with the Los Angeles city government to promote cross-border yuan trade and establish an offshore renminbi centre in California.
The move to create an offshore RMB centre in the largest state in the United States would lay the foundations for greater yuan trade with China, ICBC said in a statement.
The agreement comes at a time when many other countries are ahead of the United States in establishing cross-border trade in yuan. The United States has lagged other markets in seeking to set up offshore yuan trading hubs because the US dollar remains the world’s dominant currency and US firms are reluctant to accept the yuan, a Chinese bank executive said.