Reserve currency economy, the German Deutsche Mark gained the status of the second most important reserve currency after the US dollar. When the euro was introduced on 1 January 1999, replacing the Mark, French franc and ten other European currencies, it inherited the status of a major reserve currency from the Mark. Since then, its contribution to official reserves has risen continually as banks seek to diversify their reserves, and trade in the eurozone continues to expand. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in September 2007 that the euro could replace the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.
Yuan (currency) code for renminbi is CNY, an abbreviation of "Chinese yuan". (A similar case is the use of the terms "sterling" to designate British currency and "pound" for the unit of account.) The symbol for the yuan (元) is also used in Chinese to refer to the currency units of Japan "(yen)" and Korea "(won)", and is used to translate the currency unit "dollar" as well as some other currencies; for example, the United States dollar is called "Meiyuan" () in Chinese, and the euro is called "Ouyuan" (). When used in English in the context of the modern foreign exchange