NOVEMBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8China is promoting the yuan internationally by using loans approved through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has already increased the yuan's proportion of global payments to historic levels. China's policy banks signed a number of yuan-denominated loan contracts with foreign lenders during the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, which concluded on Wednesday.Many of the 130 countries in attendance belonged to the Global South, while the majority of Western nations stayed absent, and the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin lent support to Chinese President Xi Jinping's aim for a new, multi-polar world order."You can see that the countries that are basically using the RMB for trade settlements are mostly countries that have visited Beijing or have come up with strategic agreements with Beijing, Russia being the most obvious one," said Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia Pacific chief economist at Natixis.Geostrategic tensions and high US interest rates have aided Beijing in increasing the yuan's acceptability in some countries. According to SWIFT data released on Oct 18, the yuan - also known as the RMB - accounted for 3.71 percent of global payments by value in September, a record high and nearly doubling from 1.91 percent in January. Nonetheless, the yuan's share is insignificant when compared to the dollar's 46.6 percent.Toyota Motor, the world's largest automaker by sales, announced on Thursday (Oct 19) that it had signed an agreement to use Tesla's electric-vehicle charging technology beginning in 2025. Other automakers that have adopted Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) include Ford Motor, General Motors, and Nissan, bringing the Elon Musk-led company's superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System (CCS).The NACS ports will be used in certain Toyota and Lexus battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), including the new Toyota SUV, which will be assembled at Toyota's Kentucky plant. Owners of Toyota and Lexus vehicles equipped with CCS will be offered an adapter to enable NACS charging beginning in 2025. Tesla's NACS is widely available, with the US Department of Energy estimating that they account for roughly 60 percent of all fast chargers in the country.The rival CCS system is supported by automakers such as Volkswagen, though the German company has discussed adopting the NACS with Tesla. NEWSROOMCHINA STRENGTHENING YUAN VIA BELT & ROAD INITIATIVETOYOTA MOTORS TO IMPLEMENT TESLA EV CHARGING TECH
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