Eurozone finance chiefs urge China to bear more 'responsibility' for global financial stability

FE Team | Published: November 14, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

BRUSSELS, Nov 13 (AFP): Eurozone finance ministers urged China yesterday to bear more "responsibility" for global financial stability as they prepared a top-level mission to lobby Beijing about its runaway trade surplus with Europe.
Finance ministers, who were meeting in Brussels, are growing increasingly concerned about booming imports from the rising Asian economic giant as they also struggle to cope with the record strength of the euro and record oil prices.
"China is the fourth economic power in the world and has therefore considerable responsibility when it comes to coordinating economic and financial policies on a global scale," said Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of regular meetings of Eurozone finance ministers.
Juncker, also Luxembourg's finance minister, is due in Beijing on November 27 along with European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet and EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia to share such concerns with Chinese authorities.
Their meeting is on the eve of an EU-China summit in Beijing, which is expected to focus in part on increasingly strained trade relations.
China said Monday that its trade surplus in October topped 27 billion dollars (19 billion euros) for the first time, data sure to add to mounting pressure by the US and EU over Chinese trade policies.
Finance ministers in the 13 nations sharing the euro are increasingly frustrated that China is not letting the state-controlled exchange rate of the yuan appreciate faster, boosting booming Chinese exports.
"We want to discuss economic developments in China and Europe and deal with any macroeconomic issues that might be relevant, including exchange rate policies," Juncker told journalists after chairing the talks.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde stressed that it was ultimately in China's interest to rein in its trade surplus and allow the yuan to appreciate more freely.
"We all agreed that it is probably useful to each of us, including the Chinese, to reorient Chinese growth towards the domestic market while also re-valuing the yuan, which would be good for everybody," she said.