ISTANBUL -- The Chinese currency Renminbi (RMB) has been gaining popularity in the global market, and has made major breakthroughs in internationalization, a Turkish financing expert has said.

As China's economic fundamentals are sound, RMB assets are becoming increasingly attractive to global investors, said Halit Dover, assistant general manager of the Turkish subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"Foreign investors actively allocate RMB assets and the use of RMB under capital items, such as securities investment, has become the main driving force for the growth of cross-border RMB receipt and payment," he said, noting that more and more market players prefer to use the RMB in cross-border trade and investment.

The RMB became the fourth most active currency for global payments by value in December 2021, showed data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a global provider of financial messaging services.

These achievements demonstrate that China's economy is getting ever stronger, he said. "In recent years, China has continued to deepen its financial market reforms and the external attractiveness of the RMB has been further enhanced."

"Complementary with the continuous improvement of RMB activities in the new future, the RMB assets will also be favored by overseas institutions more and more," he said.

Noting China is Turkey's second largest trade partner, the expert called on the two countries to tap potential to use the RMB more in trade transactions.

The trade volume between China and Turkey exceeded $34 billion in 2021, up 42 percent year-on-year, but the use of the RMB only accounted for about 1 percent in their trade settlements, he noted. "This market has a huge potential for further growth in RMB use."