During the Spring Festival in the largest cities of the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Zhejiang, assets in e-CNY equivalent to 180 million yuan were launched into circulation, totaling about $27 million.
On the eve of the holiday, the administration of the city of Hangzhou, for example, gave everyone a voucher with e-CNY in the amount of $ 12, equal to 80 yuan. The total amount of free distribution of the state digital currency cost the city about 4 million yuan.
Mobile operators, shops, public transport, travel agencies, catering and other private companies were involved in the campaign to promote the digital yuan market. Legal entities were recommended to organize the acceptance of e-CNY as payment for goods and services, as well as ensure the distribution of coupons denominated in digital yuan during promotions.
Earlier, the Chinese government announced targets for digital currency: by the end of the year, transactions in e-CNY should reach more than 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion).
At the beginning of the year, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced the expansion of the geography of the pilot program for testing the state cryptocurrency and connecting 17 more provinces of the country to it.