China is promoting the yuan for settling trade deals with the Kingdom

Due to the expansion of economic and business activities between Cambodia and China, since early August the Bank of China has been negotiation with National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on the promotion of business transactions in Chinese yuan. It is part of a larger but quiet campaign by Chinese officials to boost the settling of international trade deals in yuan, and experts say China would like to see it become a reserve currency and alternative to other major currencies, such as US dollar and euro. [T]he settlement change would boost the demand for local currencies, which would dovetail with Cambodia’s de-dollarization policy. It could boost the value of the riel, which has remained relatively weak since the civil war era of the 1970s. … While there are exchange rate benefits, according to Hiroshi Suzuki, chief economist at the Business Research Institute for Cambodia (BRIC), they almost all go to China. He says Cambodian business will still be exposed to fluctuations between the dollar and yuan, or renminbi (RMB), which is the Chinese government’s official name of the currency. …