March 30 (Bloomberg) -- The central banks of China and Argentina reached an agreement for a three-year, 70 billion yuan ($10 billion) currency swap, Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan told reporters in Medellin, Colombia, today.

It’s the first such accord between the world’s third- biggest economy and a Latin American nation. The move follows swap accords between China and Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Belarus.

The agreement broadens Argentina’s access to foreign- currency reserves and may ease concerns about the country’s ability to control the peso amid uncertainty over a conflict with farmers over export taxes and legislative elections scheduled for June 28. Argentina wasn’t part of a swap facility program created by the U.S. Federal Reserve for emerging markets, including Brazil and Mexico, last year.

“It’s important because it provides the country with additional hard currency lines in case they need to react to a balance-of-payments crisis,” said Alberto Bernal, head of fixed-income research at Bulltick Securities Inc. in Miami. “This is good news.”

The agreement extends China’s efforts to reach economic accords that don’t involve the dollar. Zhou signaled concerns about the U.S. currency last week when he called on the International Monetary Fund to create a “super-sovereign reserve currency.” That prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to say March 24 that he doesn’t think “there is the need for a global currency.”

‘Symbolic’ Accord

“The yuan is one of the currencies with the greatest potential and has a significant role to play in the current redesign of the international monetary system,” Argentina’s central bank said.

Alberto Ramos, a Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York, said the agreement with Argentina is a “symbolic move and an indirect way to shun the U.S. dollar.”

Total trade between Argentina and China, including Hong Kong and Macau, totaled $965 million dollars in February, according to Argentina’s national statistics institute.

“Trade relations between the two countries were not impaired or limited by using the U.S. dollar as the unit of account and the currency to settle these transactions,” Ramos said in an e-mail. “This should have little economic impact of substance.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Bill Faries in Buenos Aires at wfaries@bloomberg.net; Joshua Goodman in Medellin, Colombia at jgoodman19@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 30, 2009 18:22 EDT