The official currency of the People’s Republic of China is the ‘Renminbi’. Literally, it means people’s currency.
Renminbi was introduced by the communist government in 1949.
It is also known as ‘yuan’, although yuan is a unit of the currency. Jiao and fen are the other units. However, the term ‘yuan’ was used long before the introduction of Renminbi, to refer to silver coins used by foreign merchants.
The importance of the Renminbi is restricted not to just the mainland of China, but to places like Hong Kong and Macau too, where they are accepted.
China did not have much exposure to the international markets before 2009. Later, the restrictions were removed and now, the country has business links with countries including Russia, Japan, Sri Lanka etc. in the international trade market, the Renminbi is the fifth most widely traded currency in the world.
