Bank of China (BOC), China's largest foreign exchange bank, announced Saturday it has signed a yuan trade settlement agreement with BOC (Hong Kong) and HSBC in Hong Kong.

The BOC is the first mainland bank to reach such agreements following rules published this week to regulate the pilot program for cross-border trade settled in yuan.

The BOC Shanghai branch had reached tentative agreements with 11 overseas agent banks on yuan trade settlement deals, said BOC spokesman Wang Zhaowen in a statement on the BOC website.

China Thursday issued detailed measures to regulate the pilot program for cross-border trade settled in yuan. The rules specified how to make transactions using Renminbi (RMB) to settle trade with Hong Kong and Macao and regional trade partners.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2009)