China National Radio reported that China and Russia signed an intergovernmental agreement on oil cooperation in Beijing on Tuesday. Under the intergovernmental agreement, China will provide a $25 billion loan to Russia, Russia will use oil as collateral. Russia will sell China 15 million metric tons of oil from 2011 to 2030, using the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline.

Energy Resources are currently the number one target of China’s overseas investment. Since the beginning of 2009 China has signed several "loan for oil" cooperation agreements with other countries, including a $10 billion loan to Brazil on February 18, a $4 billion loan with Venezuela on February 21, and a $1 billion loan with Angola on March 13. On April 5, President Correa of Ecuador announced a possible deal of exchanging crude oil for a $1 billion loan from China.

On April 16, China National Petroleum Corporation signed a contract to provide a $5 billion loan to Kazakhstan’s KazMunaiGaz National Co. to jointly buy AO Mangistaumunaigas, an oil and gas company in Kazakhstan.

Source: China National Radio, April 21, 2009
http://www.cnr.cn/gundong/200904/t20090421_505310249.html

Outlook Weekly, a magazine by Xinhua News, published an article suggesting that “there is a strongly rising public opinion that the Chinese currency RMB should become an international currency to match China’s world power status.”

The article cautioned that although the world suffered the damage brought by the US Dollar monopoly in recent years, there are still a great deal of risks for RMB internationalization. Risks mentioned in the article are: reduced capability for the central government to control Chinese macro economy, lowered stability of the economy, much heavier international responsibilities.

Source: Outlook Weekly, April 4, 2009.
http://news.sohu.com/20090408/n263256840.shtml

Outlook Weekly, a magazine by Xinhua News, reported on China’s effort to restructure its international financial strategies. The core strategy is to reduce the dependency on the US dollar. This strategy consists of three aspects: internationalization of RMB, currency and financial cooperation within East Asia and international currency system reform.

The Chinese State Council decided on April 8 that Shanghai and four cities of Guangdong Province will start a trial on international settlement in RMB. Another action taken by the Chinese government was currency exchange with six countries or administrative regions.

Source: Outlook Weekly, April 15, 2009.
http://news.sohu.com/20090415/n263396439.shtml