China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, has implemented a currency agreement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
The agreement is for a bilateral local currency swap between the institutions in a size of RMB 10 billion.
The purpose of the agreement, the initial term of which is three years, is to promote trade and investment.
This is the first deal of its type that China has put in place for nearly three years with another Asian country. The preceding one took place with Pakistan, in late 2011, also for RMB 10 billion.
Agreements with the United Kingdom and with the EU were both put in place in 2013, for RMB 200 billion and RMB 350 billion respectively. There remain notable omissions from the list of China’s bilateral currency swap counterparts, in Asia, India is still missing, and globally, the USA.