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“While the renminbi’s share was a modest 2.2% of total foreign exchange turnover in 2013, that figure has risen from near-zero in less than a decade,” said Benjamin Reitzes, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Renminbi trading is a growing business.”

The renminbi’s growing global importance is shown in the rapid growth of governments and companies issuing so called dim sum bonds — which are offshore bonds denominated in Chinese-currency — since the market was deregulated by the Chinese government in 2010.

While dim sum bonds were mainly issued by Chinese banks for the first few years, corporations and even regional governments have joined the market. McDonald’s Corp. became the first company to issue such bonds in 2010, while earlier this year, British Columbia became the first regional government to issue them when finance minister Mike de Jong reported a successful placement of 2.5-billion renminbi worth of dim sum bonds. The issue was five times oversubscribed.

A second issuance was announced by B.C. last month, raising 3 billion renminbi ($550-million) for a two-year term.

Canada, and in particular its financial hub Toronto, now joins financial powerhouses such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Frankfurt and London as a settlement hub for the renminbi. The Toronto Financial Services Alliance says the agreement will help solidify Toronto’s “stature as a global financial centre.”

Given the pattern of the past year, it seems clear that it is likely only a matter of time before all of the main financial centres of the world see similar renminbi settlement agreements.