The People's Bank of China (PBC) has signed agreements with the World Bank Group (WBG) to invest in China's inter-bank bond market on behalf of two of the WBG's agencies: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the International Development Association (IDA), the PBC announced Monday.

This marks the first time that China has allowed foreign investors into the domestic inter-bank bond market.

The move will not only help China promote the yuan as an international currency, but also ease the widening gap between the value of the country's foreign assets and foreign debts, experts told the Global Times.

To preserve the development of the country's financial market, China has long tried to keep the value of its foreign assets above the value of its foreign debt, both of which are denominated in the US dollar, Zhang Monan, an economics researcher from China's State Information Center, told the Global Times. However, in recent years the weakening of the US dollar's value against the yuan has dented the real worth of China's foreign assets, Zhang added.

By offering more yuan-denominated financial products, such as yuan-denominated inter-bank bonds, to overseas investors, China could attract an influx of the yuan into the financial market, which could help it hedge against the declining value of the country's mammoth foreign assets, Zhang explained.

China's foreign assets were $1.77 trillion higher than its foreign debts as of the end of last year, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the country's foreign currency regulator, reported Monday.

Offering foreign investors access to yuan-denominated financial products would also push up liquidity of the yuan in the global market and encourage overseas investors to hold the yuan in their currency reserves, Nie Riming, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, told the Global Times.

Nie predicted the country will see more yuan-denominated bonds introduced for foreign investors in the coming year.