07.08.08
China’s New Currency
Who doesn’t love the feel of new money? On July 8, exactly one month before the start of the Olympic games, the People’s Bank of China issued 6 million 10 yuan notes. They are 29th Olympiad Commemorative notes (see pictures)
This article says that you can exchange old notes for new ones at any of China’s Big Four banks in Beijing, but that there may be problems doing so in other places. Why? “Because of the earthquake.” My initial scan of the Chinese blogs suggests that there are shortages in availability of these notes and that some cities don’t have any at all. Hoarding could take place. The picture in this story shows people in a long line waiting to exchange bank notes. Heaven help you if you have any real banking to do in China this week.
Of note, this is the only bill in circulation that does not have Mao Zedong’s image on it. From this I predict Mao will be largest fazed out of upcoming Chinese currency (but not eliminated). This is a very logical first step toward achieving that. It will also be interesting to see if a larger denomination Chinese note is brought into circulation. There have been rumors in the past of an RMB 500 note. The current top valued note is only RMB 100 (less than US$15), though personally I like that and don’t hope to see an RMB 500 note any time soon.
10 July - edited 60million to 6 million notes that were printed (600万). nator emailed me to point out that is only one bill per 200 people.
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Hotpoter said,
July 15, 2008 at 10:49
Hope you guys traded in for some of that new currency because late I check the 10RMB notes are now worth about 1,000RMB.