RMB marks one-year anniversary of inclusion to IMF's SDR basket

The Chinese currency Renminbi has just celebrated its first anniversary as a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s basket of reserve currencies.

The Renminbi's entry into the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket makes it possible for the IMF's members to take out or repay loans in the Chinese currency.

At first, the Renminbi began sliding in value against the U.S. dollar, but has started to appreciate over the past few months.

Though the fluctuating exchange rate brought inconvenience for some individual investors, some analysts said the Renminbi's membership in the SDR basket still has had a positive impact on the opening of the Chinese capital market.

"Now the Renminbi exchange rate has more claimed floating, we call it more free-float. So that will be good, a very important base for the further opening. Not only the inflows from foreign investors into the Chinese capital market, but also maybe in the future, there will be more opening message for the domestic investors to the global market," said Li Liuyang, chief analyst at China Merchants Bank.

Last August, the World Bank issued a 3-year SDR-denominated bond worth 700 million U.S. dollars in China, the first SDR bond issued anywhere in the world in over 30 years.