Trading Offshore Chinese Yuan? Try Vancouver

[lauragalli]

Major financial centers around the world are jostling for position in the list of offshore Chinese yuan trading hubs. Hong Kong and London stand out. Luxembourg wants a piece of the action, as do Paris and Frankfurt.

Prepare to add an unlikely new name to the list: Vancouver. That’s the city that ranks 17th in the Global Financial Centres Index, in a country that snags a tiddly 1% of global foreign-exchange trading flows, according to the BIS. (New York handles almost 19% of FX flows. London proudly snags about 41%.)

So far, America’s financial capital New York has been silent on the possible development of a renminbi trading hub and the U.S. is a notable absentee in the growing list of countries that have established currency swap lines with China.

And officials in British Columbia, the Canadian province that is home to Vancouver, are keen to move fast to take advantage of this.

“For New York, this has not happened and does not seem poised to happen. This opens an opportunity for us,” Michael de Jong, finance minister British Columbia said Tuesday. Mr. de Jong wants Vancouver (along with Toronto — this is no time for city rivalry) to become a hub serving all of the American regions, as far south as Latin America. With several colleagues, he has spent the past few days meeting representatives of the City of London to find out more about what’s required to get this up and running.

The aim is to help facilitate trade and investment between Canada and China. It also reflects a desire by Canada to steer trade away from its reliance on the U.S.

British Columbia’s liquefied natural gas industry is also drawing Chinese investment interest, Mr. de Jong said. Chinese banks already have a presence in the country.