The yuan will not be revalued despite growing international pressure, Minister of Commerce Lu Fuyuan repeated yesterday at the gathering of trade ministers from Europe and Asia.
'We must maintain renminbi [yuan] stability,' he said at the Asia-Europe Meeting economic ministers' conference, which ended yesterday. 'But it doesn't mean we won't adjust it in the future.'
Mr Lu's statement did not shock his counterparts from Asia and Europe, many of whom have known for some time that the mainland would hold steadfast to its current peg of 8.28 yuan to the US dollar. Central bankers in the US, Europe and Japan have criticised the yuan exchange rate as being too low and blame China for their growing trade deficits.
Pascal Lamy, the European Union Trade Commissioner, was polite in responding to Mr Lu's defence of the yuan policy yesterday, but even he could not avoid being somewhat critical.
'The EU-China trade relationship is doing well - although we have a huge trade deficit - but we do not run trade policy based on trade deficits, nor do we run our policy based on exchange rates,' he said at the concluding press conference.
The ministers tried their best to avoid the controversy surrounding the renminbi policy. They did not even talk about it during their ministerial meeting. But they could not avoid the controversy during the final press conference, where reporters were hot in pursuit of the topic.