China urges Cambodia to use yuan in bilateral trade

Beijing. February 7. Silkroadnews - China urges Cambodia to use yuan in bilateral trade, The Straits Times reported.
“Cambodia is considering a proposal by China to use the yuan currency instead of the US dollar for bilateral trade, a spokesman for Cambodia’s commerce ministry said, the latest sign of strengthening ties between the two countries,” the report reads.
The Vice Governor of South China’s Guangdong Province Ouyang Weimin addressed this proposal to Cambodian Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak during the latter’s visit to China.
According to the commerce ministry spokesman, Pan Sorasak agreed that the trade should be conducted using the yuan and local currency of Cambodia riel.
“The Chinese side raised that, from their experiences, when they did trade with other countries using US dollars, exchanging back and forth, they lost a lot of money”, the agency quoted spokesman saying.
Last week, Pan Sorasak visited Guangdong, where he called on the officials of the province to invest more into Cambodia, and also import its agricultural products.
The US dollar is a legal tender for conducting operations in Cambodia, but the country is heavily dependent on China’s aid and investment.
Both countries have pledged to raise bilateral trade to $6 billion by 2020. In 2015 its volume amounted to $4.4 billion.