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S'pore includes RMB investments as part of Official Foreign Reserves

Xinhua, June 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced Wednesday that it will be including its renminbi (RMB) financial investments as part of its Official Foreign Reserves (OFR) from June 2016 onwards.

This move recognises the steady and calibrated liberalisation of China's financial markets, and the growing acceptance of RMB assets in the global portfolio of institutional investors, MAS said in a statement.

Since 2012, MAS has been making RMB financial investments through China's Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor and interbank bond market schemes. Investing in China has provided portfolio diversification benefits.

Over the past year, China has taken significant steps to liberalise access to its foreign exchange and securities markets for foreign institutional investors.

In November last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the RMB met the criterion of a freely usable currency and would therefore be included in the SDR basket with effect from October 1, 2016.

"The inclusion of RMB assets in MAS' OFR is timely. China's calibrated financial liberalisation in the past year has encouraged growing international acceptance of the RMB," said Jacqueline Loh, MAS deputy managing director.

"An example is the set of initiatives between China and Singapore announced in November last year to further expand channels for cross-border RMB flows and support the greater use of the RMB outside China," added Loh. Endit