Thank you, Chairman. I'm very pleased to be able to give this brief presentation.
I'm up early. I'm the chairman of the City of London's policy and resources committee. The City of London is the local authority for the Square Mile. We do many other things as well. My role is the nearest we have to being the political leader.
Being chair of the City of London RMB initiative is one of my central roles, and I've been actively involved in the initiative since shortly after its establishment. The initiative was formally launched in 2012, although there had been discussion of it previously through the economic and financial dialogue between the United Kingdom and the Chinese governments in 2011, when it was agreed that supporting the internationalization of the RMB would bring mutual benefits in trade and the global development of financial services.
The City of London has been uniquely placed to serve as the secretariat for the initiative. We have a long track record of engagement with China. We have offices in Beijing and Shanghai and we have very strong links with the banks and other financial institutions in London. We are not a government body and we're not a commercial body, so we've been very acceptable to all parties to lead the initiative. We are neutral as far as commercial and political goals are concerned, and by chairing the initiative we have allowed the participants to concentrate on finding practical solutions to developing efficient services.
The initiative is currently made up of 13 global banks, including the five major Chinese banks established in the United Kingdom. It has official support in the form of observers from the treasury and from the Bank of England. We limit membership only to keep the initiative to a manageable size, but we engage a wide range of other stakeholders in other ways.
The main activities that we have supported can be split into three complementary categories. First is ensuring the correct clearing and settlement infrastructure exists for RMB business to be carried out efficiently and effectively. London is, by a long way, the largest international foreign exchange centre, and therefore, London has been well equipped to take on this additional role. That role has been enhanced through the establishment of a swap line between the Bank of England and the People's Bank of China, and also by the appointment of the China Construction Bank as a clearing bank. Both these moves confirm the official support for the development of the market in London and help to underwrite liquidity in the market.
Second, the initiative has supported industry participants by creating the right opportunity and environment to develop market products and services. This has covered the work we did in analyzing the products and services being used in other centres, in bringing together the very different players in the market, and in discussing with corporates what their wants were, as well as looking at trends in the world in relevant markets and identifying any barriers to the market developing, and opportunities to help the market develop more efficiently.
Finally, we've been involved in education and marketing. It's been important to highlight the relevance of the market in London to corporates. Some corporates just find it a bit too easy to continue trading in U.S. dollars, as they've always done, so we've had quite a big program of work in communicating to corporates the benefit of trading in RMB, and that's been quite an important part of my own personal role.
We've also produced data using Bourse Consult, demonstrating the growth of the market, and that's been very helpful to all the participants.
All of these activities are aimed at building the end goal of a sustainable RMB market that operates effectively and creates the right environment to enable financial institutions to meet the needs of corporates. We want to see the RMB treated as another currency for doing business alongside the long-established currencies of the dollar, the euro, and sterling. To achieve this we need ongoing and effective dialogue with the Chinese authorities, not only on the RMB but on wider financial sector liberalization and reform in general; commitment from industry; and the efforts of stakeholders such as the City of London to raise awareness, to monitor developments, and to react to new developments.
Thank you.