港或许可以叫做中国货币自由化的内部研发中心。眼下，研发活动正在如火如荼地进行。
在 每天成交量达三万亿美元的外汇市场，以一般标准衡量，“研发”所涉及的规模微不足道。但香港银行界正有史以来第一次开始向中国内地以外地区的同行出借人民 币，并提供以前没有的对冲服务。银行界人士说，其结果是20世纪60年代早期欧洲美元(eurodollar)市场的再现。当时，美国境外的美元交易第一 次大量涌现。
催生这种活动的因素，在于6月19日内地和香港货币当局之间签署的一份取消香港境内使用人民币部分限制的协议。在过去，企业 开立人民币账户多数仅限于贸易结算的目的；如今，出于任何目的都可以开设人民币账户。企业和个人现在可以在不同账户间自由划转人民币款项，银行还可以帮助 企业无限制地兑换人民币。
可自由兑换、和美元挂钩的港元仍然是香港的官方货币。但人民币正在香港银行的户头上溢动，数额越来越大。5月 底，人民币银行存款总额为847亿元（合125亿美元），较去年同期增加近60%。内地游客用人民币在香港购物，香港贸易商接受内地客户用人民币付账，香 港公司也在发行以人民币计价的债券。这一切都是因为香港已经成为中国的人民币试验场，用于测试人民币在大陆以外应该怎样进行流通。
在 迈出上述最新的自由化步骤之后，现在香港银行接受、使用人民币比以往任何时候都更加自由。一些人在谈论将人民币存款利率同欧元或黄金价格变动挂钩的概念。 东方汇理银行(Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank)高级策略师Frances Cheung预计，随着银行间人民币拆借业务越来越兴旺，香港将出现一个人民币利率掉期市场。
香港新出现的一种“有本金交割远期” (deliverable forward，DF)交易让人们兴奋不已。这种交易是对人民币汇率的未来走向下注，实际操作中也是用人民币交割。此前，中国大陆以外的人想要下注人民币 汇率变动，就得通过无本金交割远期(nondeliverable forward，NDF)来进行，而这种合约是用美元交割的。
但法兴银行(Societe Generale)亚洲固定收益与外汇部门联席负责人赖利(Robert Reilly)说，已完成的交易数量有限，订单也就一两百万美元的水平。他认为，这种业务更多地是在进行“系统测试”而非其他。
存 在的问题在于，拥有人民币的银行和非银行金融机构在创制一种对投资者有吸引力的产品方面仍然受限。比如，香港的保险公司或许希望推出一种以人民币计价、允 许保单持有人从内地股市上涨过程获益的产品。但它们仍然需要获得一种特殊配额才能在上海或深圳购买内地股票，而这种配额很难获得。银行界人士说，开辟投资 内地市场的新渠道，是培育更多人民币业务的下一个步骤。
与此同时，涌入香港的人民币资金越来越多。6月份，香港和内地以人民币结算的贸易额达132.4亿元，为1月份的10倍，接下来很有可能还要更快地增长，因为一个允许人民币结算的试点项目在6月份扩大了范围，覆盖了内地更多地区。
汇丰银行(HSBC)驻香港首席中国经济学家屈宏斌相信，我们现在看到的仅仅是一线端倪。他说，内地的所有贸易事实上都用美元、欧元或日圆进行，这是不正常的。他说，在历史上，我们从来没有见到过世界最大的出口国使用他国货币用于贸易结算的情况。
虽然发达市场没有什么动力用人民币进行贸易结算，但新兴市场不一样。对它们来讲，美元是一种第三国货币。和中国做贸易，为什么不用人民币结算呢？屈宏斌相信，三到五年过后，中国同新兴市场的贸易可能会有半数用人民币进行。算下来最高就有两万亿美元的业务。
他说，我认为整个过程的发展进度将会快于多数人的预期。
A burst of activity is under way here in the city that might be called China's in-house research-and-development center for currency liberalization.
It's on a tiny scale by normal standards of the $3 trillion-a-day market for foreign exchange. But in Hong Kong, banks are for the first time starting to lend yuan to one another outside mainland China and offering hedging services that weren't available before. The result, say bankers, is reminiscent of the eurodollar market in the early 1960s, when extensive dealings in the greenback outside U.S. borders first took off.
The catalyst for this activity was an agreement signed June 19 between monetary authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong removing certain limits on usage of China's yuan within Hong Kong. In the past, businesses were mostly confined to opening yuan accounts for trade-settlement purposes; now, accounts can be opened for any purpose. Businesses and individuals alike now can transfer yuan freely between accounts. Banks also can help businesses convert yuan without restriction.
The freely convertible Hong Kong dollar, which is pegged to its U.S. counterpart, remains the city's official currency. But China's yuan, also known as the renminbi, is sloshing around the savings accounts of Hong Kong-based banks in bigger and bigger sums. Yuan bank deposits totaled 84.7 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) at the end of May, up nearly 60% from the previous year. Tourists from mainland China spend it in shops. Traders are accepting it to settle bills with customers in China. Hong Kong companies are issuing yuan-denominated debt. All do so because Hong Kong has become China's main laboratory for testing how the yuan should be traded outside the mainland.
With the latest liberalization move, banks in Hong Kong are now freer than ever to take all that yuan and put it to work. Some speak of linking the interest rate paid on yuan deposits to the direction of the euro or gold prices. Frances Cheung, senior strategist at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, foresees a market for yuan interest-rate swaps as interbank lending in the currency gains momentum.
There's much excitement about a nascent Hong Kong trade in 'deliverable forwards' -- that is, bets on the direction of the yuan in which yuan actually change hands. So far, people outside China wanting to take a position on the yuan have had to do so with nondeliverable forwards, in which trades are settled in dollars.
But the trades that have gone through are small, on the order of one or two million dollars' worth, says Robert Reilly, co-head of flow fixed income and currencies for Asia at Societe Generale. It's more 'testing the system' than anything else, he reckons.
The problem is, banks and other nonbank financial institutions sitting on yuan still are limited in what they can do to make a product interesting enough to attract investors. For instance, insurance companies in Hong Kong might want to offer a yuan-denominated product that allows policy holders to benefit from a rise in China's domestic stock market. But they need a special quota to buy Chinese stocks in Shanghai or Shenzhen, and that quota is hard to come by. Offering up more channels to access China's domestic market, bankers say, is the next step to nurture more renminbi business.
Meanwhile, more and more yuan pour into Hong Kong. Monthly trade between Hong Kong and mainland China settled in yuan jumped tenfold from January to June to 13.24 billion yuan, and it's set to rise more quickly since a pilot program allowing yuan settlement expanded to cover more of China in June.
Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, believes we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. The anomaly, he says, is the fact that China conducts virtually all its trade in dollars, euros or yen. Historically, he says, 'we've never seen a case where the world's largest exporter uses other people's currency for their trading.'
While developed markets have little incentive to denominate their trading in yuan, emerging markets are different. For them, the dollar is a foreign currency. Why not trade with China in yuan? In three to five years, half of China's emerging-markets trade could be conducted in yuan, Mr. Qu believes. That comes to as much as $2 trillion of business.
'I think this whole process is going to develop faster than most people expect,' he says.