Bankers see renminbi on rising road

"With a 2020 horizon, we think that China's capital account should be 'open' by then, albeit with some Chinese characteristics. There should be greater and more seamless direct investment flows with global renminbi liquidity facilitating global cross-border trades and payments efficiently. We are optimistic about the Chinese leadership's resolve to continue with this cautious but bold ambition," Ling said.

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"The offshore renminbi market was created explicitly to allow the currency to move toward internationalization, while the onshore market remains largely separate from the global market," noted Adrian Gostick, who specializes in risk at Thomson Reuters China. "As capital controls ease, and linkages between the onshore and offshore markets grow, the convergence between these two markets is inevitable, albeit at a gradual pace."

For example, as the dim sum bond market has evolved, spreads between dim sum bond yields and those of onshore bonds have narrowed since the dim sum market opened in July 2010. The average coupon on dim sum bonds has moved to 3.2 percent this year from 2.4 percent in 2010, while the average coupon on onshore bonds has fallen to 3.8 percent from 4.7 percent in 2010.

"Gradual onshore and offshore participation in the renminbi markets by global central banks and investors through the use of swap lines, the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor and Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor programs, the rapidly growing offshore or 'dim sum' bond markets and the rise of offshore renminbi centers-Hong Kong being the largest-have contributed to the first phase of the yuan's internationalization, but there is still a long way to go," said Patrick Pang, managing director of fixed income at ASIFMA.

"The recent announcement of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect pilot program is a prime example of the evolving and exciting landscape," Pang said.