Britain needs to build closer ties with China’s central bank to unleash London’s potential market in offshore yuan trading, a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China says.

While Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who cut Britain’s growth outlook on Wednesday, was pushing for London to become an offshore centre for yuan trading, Britain was falling behind other countries in facilitating foreign-exchange flows through currency-swap agreements, Xia Bin said at a meeting of the London Advisory Council for China.