Editorial | Promotion of digital yuan will serve Hong Kong well for the future
- As a leading international financial hub, the city has an important e-CNY role to play when it comes to global trade and business
Slowly but surely, the centralised digital yuan is becoming part of the daily lives of millions of people in mainland China. In the latest development, two cities in the eastern province of Jiangsu are joining the central government’s aggressive push for e-CNY not only for domestic use, but also for cross-border trade.
As a major international financial hub and an offshore yuan centre, Hong Kong has an even more important role to play in promoting e-CNY in global trade and finance. A sovereign digital yuan will be integral to internationalisation of the currency.
In Changshu, a city of 1.5 million, salaries of tens of thousands of public sector employees will be paid entirely in e-CNY. Meanwhile, Xuzhou, another city in Jiangsu, will use e-CNY for transactions involving services and storage charges for goods carried by cross-border trains.
A logistics hub that is the starting point of many Europe-bound freight trains, it aims to promote e-CNY for trade under the Belt and Road Initiative. Domestically, it will also extend usage to paying taxes and utilities for residents.
The two cities follow e-yuan pilot schemes held since 2020 in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu. In late 2021, Hong Kong became the first offshore centre to test e-CNY usage, followed by a second round of tests.
