Chinese ambassador proposes business in own currencies instead of dollar

China has expressed interest in doing business transactions with Bangladesh using the currencies of the two countries instead of the US dollar.

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen disclosed this to the media after a meeting with Planning Minister Abdus Salam at the latter’s office at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka Tuesday.

“Now it’s a worldwide problem. This fluctuation in the dollar rate is because of the financial and the monetary policy of the US. So, the global south, the developing countries as well as China also are facing the same problem. This is something where China wishes to work with Bangladesh,” he said.

Yao Wen also stated, “Maybe one of the ways is to use our own currencies. We approached and are engaging with Bangladesh to see what we can do together to use more of our own currencies instead of the US dollar.”

China, the second largest economy in the world, has been doing business transactions with its currency, yuan, with several countries. The country has been trying hard for the last few years so that its currency could be used more in doing global business.

China is one of the countries that have been trying actively to slash the dominance of the US dollar in global trade and commerce.

Bangladesh also started doing business transactions with India in taka-rupee from July last year, albeit on a small scale, due to the dollar crisis.

Speaking about today’s meeting with the minister, the China ambassador said that during the meeting, they discussed the possible areas of cooperation between the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China and the Bangladesh Planning Commission.

“China has already the 14th Five Year Plan while Bangladesh is having its 8th Five Year Plan. So, we can see we’ve great potential to cooperate and work on this area… we can share experiences and can cooperate on this Five Year Plan,” he added.

Noting that the NDRC of China and the Bangladesh Planning Commission are almost similar in nature, Yao Wen said, “I believe there is enormous potential to work on this area regarding macro economy and development cooperation. We discussed a lot, we’ll follow up on what we’ve discussed.”

Earlier, the planning minister told the media, “There was no specific agenda of discussion. This was a courtesy meeting. We talked about cooperation in Five Year Plan.”

Asked about the amount of China’s disbursement of funds for development projects have come down, the planning minister said this would not affect the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Such minor issues would be resolved through discussion, he stressed.