Posted on 11/20/2004 3:03:09 PM PST by yonif
Chinese President Hu Jintao told President Bush that China remains committed to a plan to allow its currency to float freely against the dollar, a senior U.S. administration official said.
The talks apparently satisfied Bush, who summarized the economic discussions as an effort "to make sure the relationship is fair and equitable on both sides."
Earlier Saturday, People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said that while China wants to move to a more liberal exchange rate regime, now isn't the time to discuss specifics.
China could widen the trading band for the yuan against the dollar, but Zhou said China was still implementing the reforms needed to move to a freer exchange rate. He made the comments in Berlin at a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations.
The topic of China's currency, the yuan, was not discussed during ministerial level meetings at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this week before the summit started.
American manufacturers contend that China's practice of pegging the yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate has led the Chinese currency to be undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving Chinese products a tremendous competitive advantage over U.S. products.
The U.S. administration has been lobbying China to change its currency practices but Chinese officials say they cannot allow the value of the yuan to be set in currency markets until they have made reforms in the country's banking and financial systems.
Wang Xiao Long, the senior economic adviser at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, suggested that the plunging dollar is a much greater worry.
The dollar has fallen to a four-and-a-half year low against the yen and is hovering near an all-time low against the euro. The issue is expected to be discussed by European finance ministers and central bank governors during their annual meeting Saturday and Sunday.
all talk, no action, by China.
Economic agenda-wise, it looks like Hu's on first.
Hu's in the White House?
Lots of considerations in making these decisions.... IMOHO. Based upon experience.
Chinese are truly playing the card. I wouldn't trust them a bit.
They read Sun-Tzu.
I hope that somebody in the USD delegation read it too...
what is your point, that the peg is good? for who?
I know your offline right now, but this issue may be of importance to you.
Your=You're
Any comments on CRESY?
I guess they want Fed to raise the interest rates. It will give them better position vs American industry and protect the value of their dollars until they manage to sell them out.
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