July 31, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - China has taken over Japan as world’s second largest economy this year. Yi Gang, China's chief currency regulator told China Reform Magazine, ’China, in fact, is now already the world's second-largest economy.’ He said the only difference was because of China’s huge population per capita income of around $3800 is way behind those of Japan and the US. ‘China is still a developing country, and we should be wise enough to know ourselves,’ Yi Gang added. The central bank estimates a growth rate of more than 9 percent in 2010 for China, down slightly because of global recession. China’s economy expanded 11.1 percent in the first half of 2010 and should continue to grow at 9 percent for the rest of this year. Economists hope this trend would continue until 2010 at 7 to 8 percent expansion, which constitutes the largest period of expansion for any country in history. The Asian dragon started registering GDP growth since it embarked on market reforms in 1978. China plans to increase the role of its national currency the yuan in international trading. The yuan is loosely pegged to US dollar and its value could fluctuate within a reasonable bracket against other currencies. So many resource-rich countries around the world have expressed willingness to trade perform mutual trades in yuan due to its inherent stability contrary to that of US dollar. Iran and China signed an agreement last month to do their mutual trades mostly using the yuan. Oil-rich Iran is one of China’s largest oil suppliers and oil purchases in yuan would help stabilize the volatile exchange market.

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