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London is where the world comes to exchange money.
Dollars, yen, pounds and euros
are traded at light speed.
But one currency is still mostly unknown here.
Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?
Can you guess which currency this could be?
An Indonesian currency.
South Korea? Very close.
- North Korea? - Is it a world currency or something?
"Pekingese"?
For all of China's economic might,
its currency, the renminbi,
is a tiny player in the world financial centres.
But economists say this is changing.
They say in 10 years,
it will be at the very heart of the global financial system.
At the moment, you have access to China
in the sense of trade in goods and services,
but they haven't really opened up their asset base,
and that's the capital account.
Until that happens, it'll remain quite a small currency.
Can you explain what a capital account is?
What we mean is the asset base. It's very simple.
It's all the assets, all the bonds and the equities and the land
and things associated with growth,
where we will be able, as international investors,
to invest in China in a range of assets.
That hasn't completely opened up yet.
Baring manages
about $60 billion at the moment,
and of that, I would say, we have
between 7% and 10% invested in Chinese assets.
Do you think the regulations will become less restrictive over time?
The regulator is very willing
to increase, obviously, its participation in the domestic markets.
If we had a lower level of regulation,
I have no doubt that more people would invest in the China markets.
This is what global investors want to gain access to -
the frenetic Chinese financial markets.
And as the rules are relaxed,
it's going to become easier to buy and sell.
I think the leaders in China are set for unprecedented reforms.
What you'll see is a much more liberal and freer market evolve and grow.
I think what we look forward to is really China
emerging as a leading global financial market.
The next decade is going to see the renminbi
move from the edge of the world financial market
to the very centre.
This is a very positive process, that we don't have this anomaly any more
of this enormous economy with its tiny financial market.
We'll have an enormous economy and an enormous financial market,
and the two of them will sit beautifully side by side,
and that's good for globalisation and global growth.