U.S. Treasury Delays Currency Report Due April 15 Until After China Talks
The U.S. Treasury Department today said it would delay its twice-yearly report on foreign-exchange markets until after U.S.-Chinese talks next month.
The report was due on April 15. The previous report, due on Oct. 15, 2010, was released on Feb. 4.
The Treasury cited a series of upcoming international meetings, in a statement released in Washington. In addition to the next U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, set to take place in Washington in May, the delay also will encompass next week’s meetings of Group of 20 finance ministers, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In February, the Obama administration declined to brand China a currency manipulator while saying the No. 2 U.S. trading partner has made “insufficient” progress on allowing the yuan to rise. The Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers say China’s currency policy gives the nation’s exporters an unfair competitive advantage. U.S. concerns have grown as China’s rising economic power put the economic relationship off balance.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told a congressional panel this week that the U.S. continues to work to encourage China to let the yuan rise “more rapidly.” The Treasury’s previous report said China should follow through on President Hu Jintao’s commitments to allow more exchange-rate flexibility and boost domestic demand, the Treasury Department said in a report to Congress yesterday on foreign-exchange markets.
The yuan “remains substantially undervalued,” according to the report, which was originally due in October and says no major trading partner meets the legal standard of improperly manipulating its currency. “It is in China’s interest to allow the nominal exchange rate to appreciate more rapidly.”
The yuan rose 0.19 percent this week, the biggest weekly advance since the period ended Feb. 14, to close at 6.5354 per dollar in Shanghai as of 4:30 p.m., according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.
The currency touched 6.5350 today, the strongest level since the country unified official and market exchange rates at the end of 1993. Financial markets were closed on the first two days of the week for public holidays.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at rchristie4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Costelloe at kcostelloe@bloomberg.net
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