BEIJING, Sept. 17 -- China saw fewer cross-border renminbi transactions in July, despite the central government's encouragement for the yuan's international use, the Bank of China (BOC) said on Wednesday.

A total of 306.7 billion yuan (49.91 billion U.S. dollars) worth of goods were settled in renminbi in July, down 11.7 percent from June, according to BOC, China's largest renminbi clearing bank. The amount of goods settled in renminbi accounted for about 13.2 percent of China's total imports and exports, 3.3 percentage points lower than a month ago.

Still, the renminbi remained the world's seventh most traded currency in July, contributing to about 1.57 percent of global payments, according to BOC.

On the cross-border investment front, however, renminbi became more popular in the first seven months.

China's outbound direct investment settled in renminbi reached 23.2 billion yuan from January to July, or 10 times of the amount seen in the same period of last year.

China is seeking to expand the use of renminbi internationally, particularly in cross-border trade after it launched a pilot program to settle cross-border trade in yuan in 2009.

Meanwhile, China has also signed currency swap agreements with a score of countries to help facilitate bilateral trade and investment. Such swaps of national currencies bypass the U.S. dollar.

BOC has so far opened more than 1,200 inter-bank RMB clearing accounts and 1.7 million RMB accounts for corporate and individual clients overseas.

The bank almost doubled its RMB payment and clearing business from a year ago to 112 trillion yuan (18.23 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, BOC data showed.