Yuan gains popularity among global traders

The Chinese yuan has appreciated by more than 30 percent against the US dollar since July 2005, when the country scrapped the renminbi's peg to the greenback and adopted a managed-floating currency system.

On Friday, the currency marched to a new high against the dollar, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System. The central parity rate of the yuan strengthened 59 basis points to reach 6.1372 per dollar, the strongest since the exchange rate reforms.

Analysts say the expected strengthening of yuan against dollar will make it more popular in cross-border trade.

However, the dominance of the US dollar in global trade remains unshakable despite the fluctuation, and no other currency can now replace it as the international reserve currency, in Gao's view.

Technically, both Chinese and overseas businesses are not as familiar with the processing of yuan settlement as they are with dollar settlement.

More importantly, Chinese currency circulated on the international market remains scarce compared with the dollar, although the Chinese government has been rolling out various measures to internationalize the yuan.

Earlier in October, the PBOC and the European Central Bank signed a 350 billion yuan (45 billion euro) currency swap agreement, bringing the volume of currency swap deals to 2.2 trillion yuan in total with 22 countries and regions.

"The internationalization of renminbi will be a long-term course, and Chinese enterprises must be fully prepared for this," Zhang of Haier Group said.