China's pace in internationalizing its currency remains "unchanged" despite calls on the country to quicken the process, central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said.

 

Yuan internationalization would see the currency play a greater role in world trade and become a globally accepted means of payment.

Zhou, governor of the People's Bank of China, said China insists on a gradual process to internationalize its currency and there is no change in position since his bank announced the policy in 2009.

"The topic is quite complicated and we have no new announcement so far," Zhou told China Daily when he attended the two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in France, which ended on Saturday.

The meeting agreed on a list of technical indicators to track trade and currency imbalances - caused by some countries spending more while others saved - but left the more tricky questions, concerning when those imbalances actually become dangerous and what to do to mitigate them, for later.

According to the G20 communiqu, indicators will focus on public and private debt, fiscal deficits and private savings rates.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who chaired the G20 gathering, said agreement "wasn't always simple", but had resulted in a text that was "balanced and demanding as regards its implementation".

Since the global financial crisis, major economies including China and Russia have called for less dependence on the US dollar in international trade and investment, and accelerated steps to promote their own currencies on a global basis.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy came up with an ambitious agenda to reform the de facto US dollar-dominated global monetary regime and wanted to put the Chinese yuan into the basket of global reserve currencies.

However, there was no progress at the two-day conference on the yuan internationalization roadmap though the international community are encouraging the world's second-largest economy to take quicker steps.