NEW YORK: The United States must stand up to China to prevent Beijing from taking unfair advantage in trade through its currency policy, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today.
“They continue to try to game the system to their advantage and our disadvantage,” Clinton said after a speech to The Economic Club of New York.
“I think it’s appropriate and fitting and timely for us to be standing up and saying, ‘This is not acceptable.’”
While the downgrade of Unites States government debt by Standard & Poor’s shocked global financial markets, China has more reason to worry than most: the bulk of its $3.2tn in official foreign reserves – more than 60 per cent – is denominated in dollars, including $1.1tn in US Treasury bonds.
So long as the US government does not default, whatever losses China may experience from the downgrade will be small.
To be sure, the dollar’s value will fall, imposing a balance-sheet loss on the Peoples’ Bank of China (PBC, the central bank). But a falling dollar would make it cheaper for Chinese consumers and companies to buy US goods. If prices are stable in the US, as is the case now, the gains from buying US goods should exactly offset the PBC’s balance-sheet losses.
Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/20118217551162510.html
BEIJING, Aug 3 (Reuters) – The yuan may only account for 3 to 5 percent of global reserve currencies a decade from now, an advisor to China’s central bank said on Wednesday, in remarks that underscored the global importance of the dollar as an investment.
Writing at a time of global concerns over U.S. economic health, Xia Bin, an academic member on the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China, said the dollar would remain an important reserve currency for a long time yet.
“The dollar will serve as the most important world reserve currency for a quite long time in the future,” Xia said in an article published in the China Finance magazine.
Confidence in the dollar and the U.S. economy has taken a beating after the United States narrowly escaped a disastrous debt default this week, running the risk of losing its gold-plated credit rating.
Read More: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL3E7J327H20110803?irpc=932
Baghdad, July 22 (Rn) – An adviser in the Iraqi government on Friday announced the signing of Baghdad and Beijing signed an agreement to raise the volume of bilateral trade to $ 10 billion from 6 billion now.
Salam al-Quraishi, a Kurdish news agency (Rn) that “Iraq agreed with China on expanding commercial and industrial enterprises to raise their bilateral trade to 10 billion dollars and the formation of a joint committee to achieve this purpose.”
The estimated volume of trade exchange between the two countries is currently $ 6 billion annually.
China needs oil and has money. Iraq has oil and needs money. So the principal question about this week’s visit to Beijing and Shanghai by several Iraqi ministers, led by the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, is what took them so long?
China has been wooing Iraq for some time. Back in 2008, when most foreign investors shunned Iraq, China signed an oil deal; as a result a Chinese-government-owned company began pumping oil there last month. And 17 months ago China agreed to write off 80 per cent of Iraq’s debt from Saddam Hussein’s time.
Maliki Jintao: We look forward to be a Beijing partner strategically in the renaissance of economic BAGHDAD – morning resulted in the visit of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Beijing for the signing of three memorandums of mutual understanding, and access to China’s support to get rid of international sanctions imposed on Iraq. has met the Prime
Minister on the second day for his visit to Beijing, Chinese President Khoo Jintao.
Erbil, July 18 (AKnews) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will meet with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in Beijing today, and President Hu Jintao tomorrow during his first official visit to China.
Maliki arrived in Beijing on Sunday at the head of a senior ministerial delegation to discuss bilateral economic ties.
One of the PM’s advisors, Ali al-Mousawi, told Aknews that the prime minister’s visit is aimed at attracting more Chinese investment in Iraq.
Yuan exchange rate reform will have a greater impact on efforts to adjust the structure of China’s foreign trade and its overall economy and to upgrade Chinese industry, the People’s Bank of China said Sunday in its fourth-quarter monetary policy report.
By IAN TALLEY, BOB DAVIS And JASON DEAN
WASHINGTON—U.S. officials, parsing every word that Chinese President Hu Jintao and his delegation uttered in a visit here this past week, said there were subtle signs they were preparing to let the yuan appreciate faster.
But the signs are purely linguistic and U.S. officials are watching to see whether the words are matched by action over the coming months. So far the Chinese currency has been appreciating, on average, about 0.5% a month against the dollar since mid-June when Beijing said it was adopting exchange-rate flexibility. The U.S. Treasury has signaled it is looking for appreciation at twice that rate.
read more: http://on.wsj.com/eHLnOL
