BEIJING, July 3 (Reuters) - The yuan will eventually play a global role alongside the dollar and the euro, but the new monetary order will take a decade or more to evolve, a former Chinese central bank governor said on Friday.
Dai Xianglong, currently chairman of China's National Social Security Fund (NSSF), said the dollar would not lose its supremacy overnight.
"The dominant position of the U.S. dollar will not weaken abruptly, but currency multi-polarisation is the trend," Dai, who was governor of the People's Bank of China from 1998 to 2002, told a forum in Beijing.
The transcript of his speech was published on www.china.com.cn.
"After 10 years' effort or even longer, we might construct
an international currency system led by the dollar, the euro,
the yuan
He said the new system he had in mind would be backed by 13 or 20 major economies. He did not elaborate.
China hopes for diversification of the international currency system in the future and it would be "normal" for the issue to be raised at next week's Group of Eight summit, Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei said on Thursday. [ID:nPEK137542]
On the domestic economy, Dai said he thought growth accelerated in the second quarter from the first-quarter pace of 6.1 percent and said China would be able to hit its target of 8 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for all of 2009.
The NSSF that Dai now heads is a fund of last resort for China's patchwork of underfunded provincial pension schemes. (Reporting by Zhou Xin and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Ken Wills)