China to start direct currency trading with Japan

China and Japan have agreed to start direct trading of their currencies from Friday as Beijing moves toward making the yuan more of a global currency.

Tokyo and Beijing will start direct trading of their currencies on Friday, Japan's Finance Minister Jun Azumi said on Tuesday, scrapping a system that sets yen-yuan rates via their US dollar values.The move is aimed at boosting trade and investment between the world's second- and third-largest economies.It is the first time China has allowed a major currency other than the greenback to trade directly with the yuan, Japanese media has reported.

Group of 20 nations will affirm a commitment to avoid weakening their currencies to gain a trade advantage, according to a draft statement prepared for a meeting this week in Washington, Bloomberg BNA reported. The statement, seen by a Bloomberg BNA reporter, maintains a February pledge to “move more rapidly toward more market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange-rate flexibility” and to refrain from competitive devaluations. Meetings of finance ministers and central bankers start Thursday.

One more domino in the dollar reserve supremacy regime falls.

China and Japan will start direct currency trading on Friday as Beijing marks another stage on its journey to internationalise the yuan.Forex traders will be able to swap Japanese yen for the Chinese unit without having to use the US dollar as an intermediary currency when markets open in Tokyo and Shanghai at 0000 GMT.The yuan-yen trade -- part of a wider deal reached last year between Beijing and Tokyo to forge closer ties --- will be allowed to move in a wider range than the narrow band at which the dollar and yuan change hands.

China and Japan have agreed to start direct trading of their currencies, a move among several that emerged from Japan’s prime minister’s visit to China on Monday.

The New York Times reports today that the new US antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of Chinese solar panels is proceeding exactly as expected - by everyone other than the folks who petitioned for the case, of course: