For the first time ever, the Chinese yuan is one of the world's ten most frequently traded currencies, according to a Bank of International Settlements (BIS) survey.
The currency ranked ninth on the bank's top-ten list, jumping eight places from the seventeen spot it held when the survey was last conducted three years ago.
BIS attributes the move to the rapid growth of offshore yuan trading, which boosted the currency's daily turnover by three-and-a-half times since the last survey to $120 billion.
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"The role of the renminbi in global FX trading surged, in line with increased efforts to internationalize the Chinese currency," the BIS said.
However, slow progress in Beijing's financial reforms has sparked doubts about the yuan's increasing popularity.
For over three years, China's financial market reform has been focused on the liberalization of its capital account and increasing the yuan's convertibility but, as analysts from Societe Generale point out in a report, "change has been slow on the domestic front and this has at least partially been responsible for the disorderly development of the shadow banking system."
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