Chinese companies may soon be allowed to use their domestic currency to buy foreign assets and companies, according to a new pilot plan announced by the People’s Bank of China last week. There are plenty of restrictions, and a global rash of renminbi-denominated deals is a distant prospect. But the move is an important step.

China’s leaders want the renminbi to become a global currency and, to prove it, they have loosened several strict controls. First came rights for foreigners to hold deposits in renminbi and to buy and sell goods. Some $10.3 billion of trade was renminbi-settled in October. And deposits in Hong Kong hit 280 billion renminbi ($42 billion) in November. Both measures were tiny six months earlier.

The latest move is a sensible follow-up. China’s outbound investments were negligible until around 2004, but by 2009 they hit $56 billion. Greater risk-taking on the part of investors, and lighter Chinese regulation, could elevate that figure rapidly. Meanwhile, if investment flows to companies and countries that already buy from China, money that goes out through mergers and acquisitions could come back through trade.

It’s not clear, though, which non-Chinese vendors will want to be paid in renminbi. In many cases, currency can’t easily be taken back across the border. Some emerging market companies or governments may accept the renminbi, perhaps because they feel that favorable treatment from China depends on doing so.

Others may be reluctant, because there’s not much to be done with the currency besides put it in low-yielding deposit accounts. Banks are developing more renminbi-denominated investment products. But this will take time. The 20 billion of renminbi-denominated bonds issued in November paled next to the 60 billion renminbi of new deposits in Hong Kong.

For most holders of the Chinese currency, though, the main appeal is still a one-way bet on its appreciation. That’s hardly the spirit in which internationalization was intended. ROBERT CYRAN and JOHN FOLEY