Joe McDonald
Associated Press
BEIJING — A state-owned Chinese bank says its New York City branch has begun offering accounts denominated in China’s tightly controlled yuan in a new move to expand the currency’s global reach.
Bank of China’s announcement comes ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington next week. The White House says President Barack Obama will press U.S. complaints about China’s currency controls that critics say keep the yuan undervalued and swell its multibillion-dollar trade surplus.
Beijing is trying to reduce reliance on the dollar by promoting the yuan, also known as the renminbi, for trade and finance. It is promoting Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own currency, as an offshore market for foreigners to conduct yuan business separate from the mainland, which is kept isolated from global capital flows.
Hong Kong banks began handling yuan transactions with the mainland last year and the World Bank and some foreign companies have sold yuan bonds.
Employees who answered the phone in the bank’s Beijing headquarters Wednesday refused to give any other details.
Bank of China Ltd. says customers of its Chinatown branch in New York will be allowed to trade yuan for dollars and can wire yuan to or from China.
In a statement on its website, the bank said account holders can exchange up to the yuan equivalent of $4,000 per day, with a limit of $20,000 per year, while the limits are half those levels for non-account customers.
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