China confronts a challenging international environment and must boost domestic consumption, said Li Daokui (李稻葵), an academic adviser to the People’s Bank of China, at a financial forum in Beijing yesterday.
China’s economy retains strong growth potential even as the international situation grows more complicated after the global financial crisis, said Li, appointed in March as one of three academic advisers to the central bank.
Pressure to let the yuan rise will grow, while both China and India face swelling trade protectionism against export goods, he said.
“Pressure for yuan appreciation is just starting and far from ending,” Li told an audience of corporate leaders.
“China faces challenges including the housing price surge that’s impeding progress in urbanization,” Li said.
The yuan strengthened 0.68 percent last week, the most since May 2008, to 6.7235 per US$1 in Shanghai, taking its gains to 1.5 percent since a two-year peg ended in June, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System.
Non-deliverable yuan forwards reflected traders’ bets that the yuan will gain 1.5 percent in the coming 12 months.
Consumer prices jumped 3.5 percent from a year earlier last month, the most in 22 months, a statistics bureau report showed on Sept. 11.
Industrial output gained 13.9 percent, compared with the 13 percent median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
China’s GDP grew 11.9 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter, the fastest pace in almost three years. Inflation topped the government’s 3 percent target.
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PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
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