2016年农产品销售情况:请高手来帮忙翻译一下这段!(5)

In Burma and Laos, the Chinese currency is a hard substitute for weak local currencies like the Burmese kyat and Laotian kip. The blackmarket rate for the kyat is as low as 1,000 to the dollar, from 250-300 in 1997. The official rate of the kip has slipped from 960 to 10,500 in the same period. More conveniently, the renminbi can be used for purchases and any kind of deal across the Chinese border.
Cross-border trade has increased in recent years. Consumer goods, machinery and fruit come in from China; timber, minerals and smuggled cars leave Burma, Laos and Thailand. All these transactions,amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual value, are settled in renminbi--greatly helped by lax controls over carrying currency in and out of China. An official from the Yunnan provincial
government told a recent Asia Society conference in Hanoi that more than a million people crossed the border with Vietnam in the previous 15 months.
Along the Thai banks of the Mekong River, Chinese traders from Yunnan do business without converting their renminbi into Thai baht. All over Thailand, an underground banking network enables traders to transfer funds in and out of the Chinese currency. A similar system works in the Pearl River Delta region connecting Hong Kong with
Guangdong province. Says Marc Faber, one of Asia's most experienced financial analysts: "The renminbi is the strongest currency in Asia right now; the problem is there isn't enough of it in circulation."
未完.