THE Bank of China has been allowed to assist overseas operations of Chinese enterprises to make cross-border salary payments to their employees on the mainland in yuan, marking an important step in the relaxation of foreign exchange controls.

The overseas subsidiaries of Chinese companies now have a new tool to channel back earnings from offshore markets, through which they can make regular remuneration payments including wages, allowances and bonuses to their employees on the mainland in yuan.

Such cross-border transactions are not subject to the current daily limit of 80,000 yuan (US$12,956) per individual, which was set by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange for personal cross-border remittance in the Chinese currency.

BOC, the nation's biggest foreign exchange bank, is the pilot institution to roll out the new service as China speeds up the globalization of the yuan, according to a bank source.

BOC's branches in Paris and Moscow have made about 34.3 million yuan of payments to the mainland by the end of April. However, the remittance service is only offered to clients that have accounts with BOC's Guangzhou branch.

Chinese financial regulators launched a pilot program in south China's Guangdong Province earlier this year that allowed the Guangzhou branches of a few banks to make yuan transfers to Hong Kong for individual clients. In addition to the regulated yearly limit of US$50,000 for personal cross-border transfers, the regulators granted an additional quota of 300,000 yuan, according to the source.