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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/business/global/28iht-yuan.html?ref=asia
BEIJING — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China struck a defiant note Sunday about the country’s exchange rate policy, saying the government would not give in to foreign demands that it let the renminbi rise in value.
Mr. Wen said in an interview with Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that the currency was facing growing pressure to appreciate, but he insisted that China was committed to keeping it stable, having virtually pegged it to the dollar since the global financial crisis worsened in the middle of last year.
“We will not yield to any pressure of any form forcing us to appreciate,” he said. As I have told my foreign friends, on one hand, you are asking for the yuan to appreciate, and on the other hand, you are taking all kinds of protectionist measures.” The renminbi is known informally as the yuan.
The true purpose of these calls is to contain China’s development, he said.
The renminbi has fallen against the currencies of most of China’s trading partners this year because it has been fixed to the weakening dollar, while China’s economy has bounced back strongly. U.S. senators have asked for an investigation into whether current renminbi policy represents a subsidy that would justify tariffs on Chinese imports.
Mr. Wen also repeated an oft-made declaration that the stable renminbi had contributed to the global economic recovery.
He gave a cautious outlook for the domestic economy in 2010, saying that it was too early to pare down the government’s stimulus policies but that officials needed to be attentive to surging real estate prices and incipient inflation.
Although China will continue to encourage citizens to buy homes for their own use, differentiated interest rates will be used as a tool to fight property market speculation, Mr. Wen said.
He was apparently referring to a proposal that China keep offering preferential mortgages — at a discount of as much as 30 percent from benchmark lending rates — for people buying their first homes but eliminate such mortgages for additional home purchases.
More broadly, Mr. Wen warned of rising imbalances from too much bank lending while defending China’s use of a stimulus package worth 4 trillion renminbi, or $586 billion, to limit the effects of the global economic crisis.
“Parts of the economy are not balanced, not coordinated and not sustainable,” Mr. Wen said, repeating previous statements. He added that it would be better if lending by Chinese banks were not on such a large scale.
China’s overall lending situation improved in the second half of the year, when banks drastically slowed their pace of credit issuance after a record surge in the first half, Mr. Wen said. Chinese banks are on course to lend an unprecedented 9.5 trillion renminbi this year, double the total of the previous year. |
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发表于 2009-12-28 22:56
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发表于 2010-1-2 19:30
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