SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s central financial institution stated on Saturday it should additional increase a pilot scheme of its digital foreign money to extra areas, together with cities within the jap Zhejiang province which is ready to host the Asian Video games later this 12 months.

The Individuals’s Financial institution of China (PBOC) stated it should promote the analysis and growth of the digital foreign money, dubbed e-CNY, and increase the scope of the pilot scheme, in response to a web based assertion.

Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen and 6 cities within the coastal Zhejiang province can be added to the prevailing 10 main “pilot” cities to check the use e-CNY, it stated.

The six cities in Zhejiang, which included the provincial capital of Hangzhou, will host the Asian Video games in September.

The PBOC has ramped up testing of the digital foreign money lately and hoped to benefit from the Beijing Winter Olympics as a possibility to advertise the yuan globalisation.

Nonetheless, Beijing’s intention to make an Olympic splash with its digital foreign money was thwarted by a COVID 19-induced exclusion of international spectators. As an alternative, it has been taken up by a captive viewers of locals unable to make use of their common digital cost apps.

The PBOC assertion additionally stated Beijing and Zhangjiakou, which co-hosted the Winter Video games in February, can even grow to be e-CNY’s pilot cities.