Photo: Róbert Hegedüs
Mariann Őry
21/06/2023 08:00
- What issue would you highlight from the cooperation between the French and the Chinese central bank?
- One way we cooperate closely with China is in the network of central banks for the greening of the financial system. We also work together in the framework of the Sustainable Finance Working Group of the G20. There are a lot of synergies there and we're always very happy to work without Chinese counterparts on this. China is also very important for Europe’s green transition because it has many of the materials we need for that.
- In your opinion, how effectively is the internationalisation of the renminbi proceeding?
- I think, for now, China does not want to internationalise the renminbi but is rather preparing all the necessary steps leading towards this goal. All these steps have not been used to their full potential yet. Without the liberalisation of the capital account, there is no possibility to completely internationalise the renminbi, but there is definitely room for doing more than where we are now.
- Which scenario is more likely: the renminbi taking the place of the dollar or a kind of multipolarity with several currencies?
- We know from history that currencies can change very quickly, right? So in the interwar years, the leading currency changed from the pound to the dollar, back to the pound and then to the dollar today, right? These things can happen very quickly. We already almost have a financial multipolarity to some extent, with the Euro being 20 per cent globally. And so there are already two players, two large currencies. I think what's really stopping the renminbi from becoming an international currency is that there's no large debt available. The US has around 30 trillion dollars of debt that people can buy. So if you are selling oil, for example, you can buy US debt, and this debt is safe because there's an American middle class and a lot of American companies that support that. In China, there's less debt available, and it's less clear if there's going to be growth fiscally in the future. I think these are the two main differences which stop making the renminbi more important just now.