“The Chinese currency will play a major role in world reserves”

According to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Chinese yuan will someday play a significant role as a global reserve currency while the U.S. dollar will remain an important currency.

"We live in a multi-polar world and a multi-currency world more and more, and that's the case for the rise of the euro as a reserve currency. The dollar stays as an important currency," Van Rompuy said during a visit to a Shanghai business school.

"But in the upcoming decades, there will be huge changes and in the far future the Chinese currency will play a role," he added. "The Chinese currency will play a major role in world reserves because China is so important in world trade and currency; money follows trade."

If China is interested in that to happen it needs to make the yuan fully convertible, and the government has given no clear indication of when that might happen.

It is widely known that the rate of the yuan in the currency market is strictly regulated by Beijing who tries to provide advantageous export environment for its Chinese businesses. Over the past several years Beijing has been also trying to introduce the yuan as the currency for trade with other countries signing bilateral currency swaps with them.