BI: Renminbi demand in domestic market equivalent to 38.9 billion US dollars
Bank Indonesia (BI) has revealed that demand for the Chinese currency, or renminbi (RMB), in the domestic market reached an equivalent value of 38.9 billion US dollars, based on data as of July 2026.
BI Deputy Governor Thomas Djiwandono said the central bank had previously projected that demand would reach around 40 billion US dollars per year. However, as of July, the realisation had already nearly reached 100 percent of that projection.
“We still have about five months left. So demand for the renminbi is indeed very large,” Thomas said during a press conference following the BI Board of Governors Meeting in Jakarta on Wednesday.
BI itself has issued Board of Governors Regulation (PADG) Number 24 of 2026 concerning amendments to PADG Number 17 of 2025 on the settlement of bilateral transactions between Indonesia and China using the rupiah and renminbi through banks.
Previously, BI together with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had also agreed to establish a Renminbi Clearing Bank in Indonesia.
The establishment of the Renminbi Clearing Bank, Thomas said, is part of the policy to deepen the money market and foreign exchange market while supporting exchange rate stability.
The Renminbi Clearing Bank functions to ensure the availability of renminbi liquidity and encourage rupiah-renminbi transactions.
Thomas said the operational launch of the Clearing Bank is expected to take place no later than the fourth quarter of this year.
“The PBOC has confirmed that the first Clearing Bank will be Bank of China. But we at Bank Indonesia are also encouraging a national bank, in this case a Himbara bank, which is currently going through the administrative process. So there will be two Renminbi Clearing Banks in Indonesia,” Thomas explained.
On the same occasion, BI Acting Governor Destry Damayanti said that export-import trade transactions between Indonesia and China are increasingly growing, especially those using the local currency transaction (LCT) scheme.
Destry explained that market participants who need renminbi have so far had to first purchase US dollars, which were then exchanged for renminbi. In some cases, the exchange was even carried out in offshore markets abroad.
According to her, that mechanism is now being streamlined by increasing the supply of renminbi in the domestic market.
As a result, market participants no longer need to purchase US dollars first, but can directly transact using renminbi.
“This will ultimately also reduce pressure on dollar demand going forward. So that is the effort we are making to diversify and enrich the types of foreign currencies available in our domestic market,” Destry said.