Chinese money and coins, tips for visitors. Chinese money and coins, tips for visitors Wallet contents: Chinese yuan, Mao, fen

Yuan- monetary unit of the People's Republic of China. The word is used exclusively outside of China; translated as “circle” (“round coin”).

In the Celestial Empire, the lexeme “Renminbi” appears, which should be literally understood as “people’s money”.

International designation - CNY.

The yuan symbol is a Latin letter Y with two slashes. original name— Yen sign, code — U+00A5. There is a misconception that a letter with one stroke is used to denote the yuan, and a letter with two strokes for the yen.

All about the Chinese yuan currency: bills and coins

1 yuan = 10 jiao = 100 fen.

Fenny is about the same as a penny. This word is translated as “hundredth part”, “one tenth”, “divide”, “split”, “separate”, “discriminate”, “minute”, “point”.

Banknotes:

• 1, 2 (very rare), 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 yuan;
• 1, 2 and 5 jiao.

Coins:

• 1 yuan;
• 1 and 5 jiao (also colloquially called "mao");
• 1, 2 and 5 fen.

What do yuan look like?

Now in China, banknotes of the fifth series, printed after 1999, are considered the main ones.

On the front side (obverse) there is a portrait of Mao Zedong and flowers, on the other side there is a landscape.

• 1 yuan - 130×63 mm; olive green banknote; orchid and Xihu Lake printed;
• 5 yuan - 135x63 mm; purple bill; daffodil and Mount Taishan;
• 10 yuan - 140×70 mm; blue banknote; rose and 3 rapids of the Yangtze River;
• 20 yuan - 145×70 mm; banknote in brown tones; printed lotus, with reverse side— landscape of the urban district of Guilin in southern China;
• 50 yuan - 150×70 mm; green banknote; chrysanthemum and Potala Palace (former residence of the Dalai Lama in Tibet Autonomous Okrug China);
• 100 yuan - 155x77 mm; red banknote; on the front side is a Japanese plum, on the other side is the People's Congress Palace in Beijing.

Below are photos of yuan in other denominations.

On coins new series The denomination and year of minting are indicated (in Arabic numerals), and the name of the bank is listed. Coins are minted from different materials: the smallest coins of 1, 2 and 5 fen are made of aluminum. 1 yuan - made of nickel-plated steel. 1 jiao - steel with nickel plating or aluminum alloy, 5 jiao - brass or nickel with brass plating (depending on the year of minting).

How to distinguish real yuan from fake

You should run your finger through Mao Zedong's hair: on large denomination banknotes it is embossed.

Watermarks on real yuan are clear and have strictly defined boundaries.

It is worth looking at the denomination of the banknote at an angle, tilting the bill: a blue halo should be visible around the ornament.

You can use a keychain detector and shine it on the money: real ones contain special threads that glow in ultraviolet light.

A little history

It is believed that money appeared in China (coins - from the 7th century BC, and banknotes - from the 8th century AD, when paper was invented in the Middle Kingdom).

Chinese liang and money from other countries were in use. The currency was silver bars, the weight of which was measured in lians. Liang is still used in China today as a unit of weight (50 grams).

Since 1935, yuan and liang made of silver have been banned in China, and private ownership of this metal has been abolished; They also stopped issuing local currencies.

It began and all new banknotes had to be introduced: 500 (1941), 1,000 and 2,000 (1942), 2,500 and 5,000 (1945) and even 10,000 yuan (1947).

The current history of the Chinese yuan began in 1948, when the People's Bank of China was founded as a result of the merger of 3 banks. It was he who acquired the exclusive right to issue yuan. 1 yuan was valued at 0.22217 grams of pure gold.

The first series of “people's money” (12 denominations) had 62 designs. You had to give 3,000,000 old banknotes to get 1 yuan. An unreasonable amount of new money was issued - hyperinflation occurred.

Literally immediately it happened, and by the end of 1948, 1 cost 20 yuan (the rate increased 5 times).

The replacement of old-style money was completed only by 1952 (even later in Tibet - by 1959).

1955 was marked by a new reform: old money was exchanged for new ones at the rate of 10,000 to 1. A second series of money was issued, which was withdrawn from circulation until 2007.

In 1962, the third series of yuan appeared (it was in use until 2000). From 1987 to 1997, the fourth series of banknotes was introduced. It is still in use, although it is being phased out.

Devaluation was noted in 1994, when the national currency weakened by a third.

The past year was marked by redenomination: on August 11, 2015, the Central Bank reference rate was reduced by 1.9%: to 6.2298 yuan per US dollar from 6.1162.

Over the past 20 years, China has managed to break into second place in the world (after the USA).

On November 30, 2015, it was decided to make the yuan another reserve currency from October 1, 2016. So far, these are the US dollar (now dominant; in 2014 it held 63.1% of foreign exchange reserves), euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc.

Yuan exchange rate

Until 1974, there was a clear link to the pound sterling and the Hong Kong dollar (issued in Hong Kong, for 1 US dollar you need to pay 7.5-7.85 units of this currency). After that - to the American dollar and the currency basket.

The dynamics of the yuan exchange rate against the US dollar has been unchanged for more than 10 years: since 1994, the ratio has been 8.28 to 1.

Founder of the Chinese Communist Party

Zedong (mao)

Zedong (Mao)

Dictator of China (Mao)

Chinese poet... Dun (mao)

Helmsman of the Chinese People (Mao)

Seychelles, the only place in the world where golden bananas grow (mao)

Chinese Lenin (Mao)

in the photo (mao)

Great Helmsman (Chinese) (Mao)

The Great Helmsman, whose name was “appropriated” by the Moscow Architectural Society (MAO)

City in Chad (Mao)

Famous Chinese (Mao)

Name of a Chinese leader in the recent past (Mao)

Chinese leader (Mao)

Leader of China of yesteryear (Mao)

Father of Nations in China (Mao)

Peacock from "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling (mao)

Zedong (Mao)

Former leader of China (Mao)

Name Zedong (Mao)

Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China since 1943. One of the founders of the CCP (Mao)

TENTH OF RMB 3 LETTERS (mao)

An ancient Chinese spear with a leaf-shaped or knife-shaped tip; Spanish to work from the chariot or work against the chariot (mao)

Moscow Architectural Society (1867-1932), Russia's first association of architects and civil engineers (MAO)

Great Helmsman of the Chinese (Mao)

tenth of yuan (mao)

Chinese dime (mao)

locality (city) in Chad (Mao)

one tenth of the yuan (mao)

Many people who come to China have trouble understanding the Chinese monetary system. They complain that it is complex and confusing. Indeed, except yuan (analogous to rubles) and feney (“kopecks”) there are more jiao . Chinese money is called 人民币 renminbi. Let's try to put everything in order and tell you how not to end up with a wallet full of heavy change and where to put the accumulated paper jiao.

Chinese money is also interesting to numismatists. There are still old coins made of a very light alloy (possibly aluminum) in circulation. They are different from modern coins pattern, shape, weight and color of the metal. Every year such coins are found less and less often. Lately they have almost disappeared from circulation.

Paper jiao and yuan in a vessel with water. Temple in Beijing

Wallet contents: Chinese yuan, mao, fen

Yuan 元, 圆. In colloquial speech it is also often called kuai 块 ("piece"). This is an analogue of our ruble. Yuan is the most common currency in China. Yuan comes in paper (5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 yuan) and metal (1 yuan). The largest bill is 100 yuan, the smallest is 1 yuan.

100 yuan note

RMB to ruble and dollar exchange rate is constantly changing, so it’s worth checking before your trip. Currently, it fluctuates around 10 rubles per 1 yuan, 1 dollar is about 6.65 yuan. This is also useful in order to imagine the cost of an item purchased in China in terms of rubles. After such a comparison, many Chinese goods will not seem so cheap.

In passing, I would like to remind you that on Chinese price tags the price is indicated per 500 grams, and not per kilogram, as is customary here. This special weight category is called jing斤 When purchasing any food products (even tea), do not forget to double the cost. Perhaps it is precisely because of this weight unit that many Chinese products displayed on the counter at first seem very cheap.

My advice. There is one win-win option that allows you to significantly reduce the price when trading with a Chinese seller. Of course, only when he knows at least a little Russian or English language(unless you speak Chinese). To convince the merchant that he is greatly overestimating the price, telling him the price (even if greatly underestimated) for this product in Russia will help. This argument will give you confidence that the item should cost less. More detailed description ways to reduce the price when buying goods in China, you can read in our article

(function(w, d, n, s, t) ( w[n] = w[n] || ; w[n].push(function() ( Ya.Context.AdvManager.render(( blockId: "R-A -143470-6", renderTo: "yandex_rtb_R-A-143470-6", async: true )); )); t = d.getElementsByTagName("script"); s = d.createElement("script"); s .type = "text/javascript"; s.src = "//an.yandex.ru/system/context.js"; s.async = true; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); ))(this , this.document, "yandexContextAsyncCallbacks");

Fen分*. The Chinese pronounce its name as "feng". These coins can be compared to our pennies. In everyday life there are “kopeck notes” in denominations of 1, 2 and 5 fen.

* Fen 分 - very ambiguous word. Its main translations are “divide”, “split”, “separate”, “distinguish”. This is where the meaning of something very small, fractional comes from. Fen also means "minute", "point", 1/10 or 1/100 of a part.

5 fen coins

My advice. Choose a wallet that has a closed compartment for coins. From the first day of your stay in China, you will notice how heavy your wallet has become. Sellers willingly throw off metal coins and give change.

Jiao 角, or, more colloquially, mao 毛. This is 0.1 yuan. There are 10 fen in one jiao. Jiao come in paper and metal. Paper and metal jiao are smaller in size than yuan. At first, foreigners get confused with this monetary unit, surprised at how quickly their wallet is replenished with notes and coins in denominations of 1 or 5 jiao.

My advice. Don't accumulate too much jiao. Give them away as you accumulate them. Keep some of the paper jiao for donation. Please note that a lot of this money is in the transparent donation boxes that are available in most churches. There are much fewer yuan there. Metal jiao coins are thrown into a pond or fountain (for good luck to return) in places where this is customary. However, paper money is often thrown there as well.

Do the Chinese like metal coins?

The Chinese are calm about metal money. Southerners take them more readily. Thus, a machine at one of the subway (metro) stations in Shanghai did not want to accept paper money. I had to exchange them. Northerners prefer paper money. There are fewer problems. The machines here are, as a rule, omnivores.

My advice. Feel free to offer a full handful of coins in the store. The seller (or cashier) and the queue (if there is one) will treat this with understanding. Money is money. If you are not a numismatist, then do not take a heavy bag of unused change with you to your homeland. Better buy something useful with it. The main thing is that you have enough money :)

© Website, 2009-2020. Copying and reprinting of any materials and photographs from the website in electronic publications and printed publications is prohibited.

CNY– the official currency of the People's Republic of China. It should be borne in mind that the word “yuan” (translated into Russian as “circle” or “round coin”) is used exclusively abroad. The internal name of the currency is Renminbi or, as is customary in Latin spelling, Renminbi, which translates as “people's money”. Bank code is CNY. 1 yuan is equal to 10 jiao or 100 fen. Banknote denominations: 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2 (rare) and 1 yuan, as well as 5, 2 and 1 jiao. Coins: 1 yuan, 5, 2 and 1 jiao.

Traditionally, on the front side of banknotes there is a portrait of Mao Zedong and flowers. Moreover, to the portrait of the leader, for 100 yuan a Japanese plum is added, for 50 - a chrysanthemum, for 20 - a lotus, for 10 - a rose, for 5 - a daffodil and for 1 yuan - an orchid. Reverse side decorate the landscapes of the People's Republic of China. The coins of the latest series contain on the obverse the name of the bank and the year of issue, on the reverse side on 1 yuan there is the inscription RMB (three times; the coin is made of nickel coated with steel), on the 5 jiao there is an image of a reed (made of copper coated with steel). The 1 jiao coin is smooth and made of aluminum alloy. No other denominations have been issued since the end of the last century.

Despite the fact that China is considered one of the first countries in the world to use banknotes (coins appeared in the 7th century BC, banknotes in the 8th century AD, and paper was invented there around 100 AD .), money in its modern form traces its history there only to 1948. It was then that the People's Bank of China was created, which received the exclusive right to issue. Before this, since 1835, the Chinese liang was issued, equal to 10 mao and 100 fin. Small gold bars were used for large payments. In rural areas there were more small coins: qiani and cache. In addition, throughout China there was a huge amount of foreign money in circulation.

The first attempt to unify the monetary system was made in 1933, but it was not successful: each province continued to issue its own coins and banknotes. In addition, part of the territory was occupied, and Japanese military yen were in circulation there from 1938 to 1943.

Until 1935, the yuan was pegged to the silver standard, and after that to the gold standard. At the same time, as a result of the monetary reform, previously issued money was replaced with banknotes. Their excessive emission led to hyperinflation: in 1936, 1 US dollar corresponded to 3.36 yuan, and in 1946 - 3,350. The outbreak of the revolution completely collapsed the national currency.

On January 1, 1948, the People's Bank of China issued the first "people's money", defining the gold content of the yuan as 0.22217 grams of pure gold. The exchange rate for old banknotes was 3 million for 1 yuan. Moreover, the reform was not carried out at once, but as the provinces were united by the communists. Local banknotes were finally replaced by a single currency only by 1952, and in Tibet - by 1959.

In the first year, the authorities had to devalue the national currency several times: initially 1 US dollar was worth 4 yuan, by the end of 1948 it was already 20. In 1955, the People's Bank of China carried out monetary reform: from March 1 to April 30, old money was exchanged for new ones at a rate of 10,000:1.

Illustration: People's Bank of China

At the same time, it is assumed that sooner or later the Chinese leadership will liberalize the economy and exchange rates. And then the prospect of making a profit due to the increase in the value of the currency may open up.

As for the exchange of cash currency in China, foreign citizens can exchange it for yuan freely in banks and specialized exchange offices. Moreover, if you need to make a reverse exchange - exchange the remaining yuan for another currency upon departure, then you must save the certificate of exchange.