Renminbi usage expands on route

The ambitious China-led Belt and Road Initiative is set to turbocharge the use of renminbi in international trade and finance, pumping fresh oxygen into the currency's global outreach, an economist said.

The massive trade and infrastructure project, first mooted by President Xi Jinping in 2013, echoes the world's second-largest economy's determination to sharpen the currency's role as a widely-used fundraising and payment vehicle in overseas financial centers to finance a constellation of infrastructure construction and booming trade across 65 countries and regions along the route.

The People's Bank of China recently said it has authorized Bank of China's New York branch to be the first renminbi clearing bank in the United States, beefing up the lender's offshore renminbi clearing business footprint to 11 countries and regions on five continents, and sending China's total number of overseas renminbi clearing hubs to more than 20.