On Feb 27, 2025, Bank of China released the Off-shore RMB Index (ORI) for the third quarter of 2024. The results showed that at the end of the third quarter of 2024, the ORI stood at 2.08 percent, a decrease of 0.02 percentage points from the end of the previous quarter and 0.04 percentage points lower than the forecast value.
In the third quarter of 2024, the ORI experienced a slight decline from its previous level. The development of the off-shore RMB market during the quarter was characterized by the following features:
More off-shore RMB markets all over the world were developed with enhanced services. During the third quarter of 2024, the State Bank of Vietnam and the People's Bank of China signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation to further promote collaborations in areas such as local currency settlements, local currency swaps, and cross-border payment connectivity.
The world's first RMB SGS (a combination of sustainability-linked loans, green loans and social responsibility loans) bond was issued on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, providing more off-shore RMB products and transaction channels for investors.
The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic included RMB as one of the five currencies for which it announced official exchange rates daily against its currency, the Kyrgyzstani Som (KGS). It was expected to promote the RMB exchange market in the country.
The scale of off-shore RMB financing continued to expand. According to the data released by society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunication (SWIFT), the share of RMB in global trade finance in the third quarter of 2024 increased by 0.65 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 5.9 percent, upgrading to the world's second-largest trade finance currency from the third place. The issuance of off-shore RMB bonds hit a new high of 225.5 billion yuan ($31.89 billion) in the third quarter, a nearly 30 percent increase quarter-on-quarter.
Overseas investors showed strong interest in participating in RMB capital markets and the proportion of RMB assets in official reserve assets rebounded.
The valuation of the capital market was gradually gaining attention from investors. At the end of the quarter, the market value of onshore RMB stocks held by overseas investors exceeded 3 trillion yuan, an increase of 12 percent from the end of the previous year.
The RMB assets in international official reserve assets increased by $12 billion from the end of the previous quarter, accounting for 2.17 percent of total official reserve assets, an increase of 0.03 percentage points from the previous quarter.
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