NANJING, China, March 31 (Reuters) - The yuan need not be fully convertible to gain inclusion in the basket of currencies that forms the Special Drawing Right, the International Monetary Fund's unit of account, an academic adviser to the Chinese central bank said on Thursday.
Xia Bin also said that the move towards yuan convertibility would be gradual and that the government needed to maintain appropriate controls on capital flows.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a one-day seminar bringing together central bankers, finance ministers and academics from the Group of 20 wealthy and developing economies to discuss how to revamp the global monetary system. (Reporting by Kevin Yao and Xie Heng; Editing by Ken Wills)