January 2, 2002	Wednesday	Shawwal 17, 1422

BEIJING, Jan 1: Several currency exchanges in the Chinese capital announced Tuesday they would accept the new European single currency as well as the euro zone’s outgoing national currencies, as long as they continue to exist as legal tender.

But by early afternoon not one person had changed euros for yuan at any of the exchanges visited by AFP, as the first people travelling from the euro zone after midnight, when the new currency became available in cash machines, had not yet arrived in China because of the time difference.

A Bank of China spokesman said on Monday that the bank’s exchange bureaux would change the euro from January 2.

By mid-afternoon Tuesday a Bank of China exchange bureau employee said he could change and dispense the new currency.—AFP