The Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), became the fourth global payment currency, according to the 2022 RMB Internationalization Report released by the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

The RMB overtook the Japanese yen to become the fourth most active currency for global payments by value in December 2021, with a share of 2.7 percent, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a global provider of financial messaging services.

The RMB's share of international payments increased to 3.2 percent in January 2022, a record high.

Cross-border RMB receipts and payments in non-banking sectors hit a record high of 36.6 trillion yuan ($5.1 trillion) last year, up 29 percent year on year, according to the central bank report. The net inflow of cross-border RMB settlements stood at 404.47 billion yuan last year.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Chinese currency accounted for 2.88 percent of global foreign exchange reserves in the first quarter of this year, up 1.8 percentage points from 2016 when it entered the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket, ranking fifth worldwide.

Meanwhile, the amount of cross-border RMB settlements related to the real economy maintained rapid growth.