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Foreign trade companies in Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province, have saved more than 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion) in the cross-border renminbi business over the past 10 years, local media reported on March 4.

In 2020, total cross-border RMB settlements in Jiaxing amounted to 55.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28 percent, including 38.2 billion yuan in settlements from the real economy, a 36 percent year-on-year increase.

"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the RMB has been climbing in value recently, so we prefer to use RMB for settlements to avoid financial risk," said a general manager of a Jiaxing-based foreign trade company.

According to the general manager, all of the company's exchange collections were settled in RMB in 2020.

In recent years, in order to increase awareness of the cross-border RMB business among Jiaxing companies, the Jiaxing branch of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has dispatched clerks to advise local foreign trade companies.

In 2020, more than 500 online and offline consultations were organized by these bank clerks. They also formulated more than 100 customized cross-border RMB products for local companies.

The PBOC's Jiaxing branch also helped 33 Jiaxing companies receive approval to carry out trade and investment involving cross-border RMB business.

The Jiaxing branch has already settled more than 200 cross-border RMB business transactions worth more than 12.7 billion yuan, accounting for 19 percent of the total amount in Zhejiang.