China said to extend onshore FX trading to overlap with London

Beijing

CHINA'S foreign exchange market will "soon" extend the trading hours for the yuan to 11.30pm (1530 GMT) to overlap with European trading hours, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

The change is seen helping Beijing advance its project to encourage more international use of the yuan and support China's case for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to include the yuan in its currency basket.

"The move will be a big boost to the yuan's inclusion in the IMF's SDR basket," said Joey Chew, Asian FX Strategist at HSBC in Hong Kong, referring to the special drawing rights basket, which the IMF uses as an internal unit of exchang…