At a roundtable discussion organized by China Forex, Ba Shusong,executive dean of the HSBC Institute of Finance at Peking University and Vice President of the China Society of Macroeconomics,and Lu Zhengwei,chief economist of Industrial Bank and chief economist of HuaFu Securities,shared their opinions on the coronavirus and the renminbi internationalization. The conversation,which follows in edited form,was moderated by Zhong Wei,China Forex deputy editor.

China's economy has experienced rapid growth since the reform and opening policy got under way more than four decades ago. In more recent years，growth has moderated as the economy entered a stage of higher quality development. China has been steadily deepening its economic reforms and is now on track towards a comprehensive opening up. China now accounts for a significant share of the global economy and world trade. Moreover，it is very active in overseas investment. Against this background，the renminbi has become more widely used around the world，and the inclusion of the Chinese currency in the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights in 2015 has pushed internationalization to a new level. With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the global economy facing great challenges，should we continue liberalizing the renminbi against all these difficulties? Would this make a greater contribution to international financial stability?

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Zhong Wei: Welcome to this session's "round-table" discussion. Global financial markets have encountered severe turbulence due to the Covid-19 pandemic and other factors. The exchange rates of major currencies have moved in different directions in response to investor sentiment，the coronavirus outbreak，resource price volatility and central bank policy adjustments. The dollar index continues to strengthen，while dollar liquidity is relatively tight. Looking back to the Asian financial crisis and the sub-prime crisis，the renminbi played a positive role in stabilizing the global financial situation by staying strong against the US dollar. The renminbi exchange rate has also remained stable at a reasonably balanced level since the beginning of 2020. What are your views of the likely trend for the renminbi exchange rate this year?