Mubasher: The Deutsche Bundesbank has decided to add the Chinese yuan to its foreign exchange reserves, the bank’s board member Andreas Dombret said at a finance event held in Hong Kong on Monday.

The decision, taken in 2017, came after the European Central Bank (ECB) invested EUR 500 million in the Chinese currency, Dombert noted.

The central banker added that this move would increase the international status of the yuan and Beijing as an important trading partner for the Eurozone.

“It is not a major amount but it is something that we decided on and that we want to be part of,” Dombret told Bloomberg, pointing out that the yuan has been included in both special drawing rights (SDR) and ECB investments.

Furthermore, the renminbi was added to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) reserve basket in 2016, joining the big four currencies, namely the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, and the British pound.

By 02:53 pm GMT, the EUR/CNY pair jumped 0.57% to 7.8931.