China, bristling at calls to revalue the yuan, ruled out any change to its currency peg during a visit by US Treasury Secretary John Snow yesterday but offered a token easing of its capital controls.
Snow, who landed in Beijing yesterday afternoon, is under pressure at home to urge China to revalue the yuan, which is pegged to the dollar, to save jobs at hard-pressed US factories.
The International Monetary Fund weighed in yesterday, saying it was in China's best interests to move towards a more flexible exchange rate system.
"Such a move would improve the central bank's ability to control money and credit growth, and also help cushion China's economy from domestic and external shocks," IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler said in a statement.
But China stood its ground.
"There won't be any change in the exchange rate just because someone is visiting China," a spokesman for the central People's Bank of China said.
Shortly after Snow arrived, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (
"The stable exchange rate of the renminbi is conducive to the economic stability and development of China, Asia and the world," he said.
American manufacturers claim a cheap yuan, held at around 8.3 to the US dollar, gives Chinese rivals an unfair edge.
Snow has said little publicly while in Asia about China's currency but Japanese Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said they had agreed in talks in Tokyo the market should set the value of the yuan.
Snow was due to meet central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) and Finance Minister Jin Renqing (金人慶) yesterday.
"I think John Snow is wasting his time because China is not going to revalue its currency because the US wants them to," the Economist Intelligence Unit's chief economist, Robin Bew, said in Hong Kong.
China is worried about the damage a revaluation may cause to export growth that has helped fuel one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
The state-run China Daily newspaper said it did not want the yuan to be caught up in the 2004 US presidential race.
"China's currency, unfortunately, is in a position of finding itself involved in the finger-wagging sessions that accompany this essentially American saga," it said in a commentary under the title "Don't meddle with the yuan."
But Beijing, continuing with a series of adjustments to capital controls aimed at easing the yuan's appreciation, said it would raise the limit on the amount of foreign exchange Chinese travellers could buy from banks.
CALL FOR SUPPORT: President William Lai called on lawmakers across party lines to ensure the livelihood of Taiwanese and that national security is protected President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called for bipartisan support for Taiwan’s investment in self-defense capabilities at the christening and launch of two coast guard vessels at CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard in Kaohsiung. The Taipei (台北) is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels, and the Siraya (西拉雅) is the Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) first-ever ocean patrol vessel, the government said. The Taipei is the fourth and final ship of the Chiayi-class offshore patrol vessels with a displacement of about 4,000 tonnes, Lai said. This ship class was ordered as a result of former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) 2018
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
HOTEL HIRING: An official said that hoteliers could begin hiring migrant workers next year, but must adhere to a rule requiring a NT$2,000 salary hike for Taiwanese The government is to allow the hospitality industry to recruit mid-level migrant workers for housekeeping and three other lines of work after the Executive Yuan yesterday approved a proposal by the Ministry of Labor. A shortage of workers at hotels and accommodation facilities was discussed at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee. A 2023 survey conducted by the Tourism Administration found that Taiwan’s lodging industry was short of about 6,600 housekeeping and cleaning workers, the agency said in a report to the committee. The shortage of workers in the industry is being studied, the report said. Hotel and Lodging Division Deputy Director Cheng
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
RSS