GUANGXI may launch a trial to allow the yuan to be used to settle international trade transactions this year, but neighboring Yunnan Province would likely launch its trial first, a People’s Bank of China official from Guangxi said Saturday.

  “Yunnan may be able to launch the trial as soon as the first half of this year, but they have their timetable and we have ours,” said Huang Liangpi, the deputy chief of the central bank’s Nanning center sub-branch.

  “The financial institutions in our region are less developed. We will, however, make an effort to get the trial program launched this year.”

  Huang also said that no foreign banks had applied to take part in the trial. He declined to say which domestic banks had applied.

  Yang Xiaoping, the deputy chief of the central bank’s Kunming center sub-branch, said Saturday that Yunnan Province would start a trial to allow the yuan to be used to settle international trade transactions in the first half of this year and banks from Hong Kong and Thailand may take part in the trial.

  China said in December that it aimed to allow the yuan, also known as the renminbi, to be used on a trial basis to settle trade between a few Chinese provinces and neighboring states.

  Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will also be permitted to use the yuan in trade with China’s Guangxi and Yunnan.