The bank predicts that trades conducted in RMB will also rise to $2 trillion in the next three years, a figure that would represent a third to a half of the nation’s trade volume. In 2011, 9% or $318 billion of China’s global trades with the rest of the world were transacted in the Chinese currency.
HSBC, which this week revised its global-trade forecasts higher, now expects global trade to accelerate from 2014, rather than 2015, supported by an earlier resumption of economic growth within emerging markets. Annual trade growth in the Asia-Pacific is forecast to consistently outperform the global average, with the gap widening during the next 15 years.
China’s trade growth, forecast to be 6.61% over the next five years, looks set to substantially outperform expected global-trade growth at 3.78%. This would see China become the world’s largest trading nation, overtaking the US by 2016.
| APAC Countries - Share of world trade 2011-2026 (%) |
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| Source: HSBC |
“We are witnessing more and more customers actively exploring the option of switching their trade currency to renminbi for those trading with China,” Terence Chiu , HSBC’s head of trade and supply chain for Hong Kong and Macau, told Asiamoney. The bank has said it is also likely that regions such as Latin America and the Middle East will soon speed up their adoption of RMB as one of their main trade currencies, as so-called south-south trade develops.
HSBC’s findings complement recent research from the People’s Bank of China that has pushed for further liberalization of Chinese capital controls to encourage lending of RMB in international markets, especially in support of trade deals that would accelerate the use of RMB internationally.