Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 03 October 2016: Yuan became one of the world's reserve currency

From October 1 Chinese yuan is officially recognized as the fifth reserve currency alongside the US dollar, the European euro, British pound sterling and the Japanese yen. The message is published on the website of the International Monetary Fund. IMF posted yuan above the Japanese yen and the British pound sterling, right after the dollar and the euro. The so-called basket of special drawing rights (SDR) to the dollar now accounts for 41.73%, the euro - 30.93%, the yuan - 10.92%, the yen - 8.33%, the pound - 8.09%.

As stated by the head of the IMF Christine Lagarde, "the SDR basket included the yuan to better reflect the global economy".

However, according to experts, if to approach strictly, Yuan cannot be considered freely convertible currency since 1st of October. Currency becomes the world-wide when it is actively used in cross-border trade, and its share is high enough in the reserves of central banks. This is not achieved yet. In addition, the Chinese government keeps the yuan in a rather hard currency corridor. Unlike the Chinese currency, dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling have floating exchange rates, which are not subject to government intervention.

Initially, there were 16 currencies in the SDR basket, but in 1981 this number was reduced to 5 major ones: the US dollar, German mark, French franc, British pound and Japanese yen. In 2000, with the appearance of the euro, the franc, and the mark have been replaced by the European single currency.