BEIJING, April 17 -- The government will officially launch a market for swapping the yuan and foreign currencies April 24, the country's sole interbank market said Friday.

    The swap market would be based on the interbank market, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS), and would initially have 54 members, including the Shanghai branches of Citigroup and HSBC Holdings Plc., it said.

    "Members can swap the yuan and foreign exchange, with the purpose of hedging and adjusting position portfolios," the CFETS, a unit of the central bank, said in the statement published on its Web site.

    Other members include the country's five biggest banks: Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of Communications.

    The move came after the market launched onshore yuan foreign exchange forwards last August. The central bank had said then that it would allow banks that had been given permission to engage in forwards to conduct the swap business six months later.

    China revalued the yuan by 2.1 percent to 8.11 per U.S. dollar last July, and freed it from a dollar peg to float within managed bands.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)