By DPA
Beijing : Problems in the US credit market and its global ripple effects would also impact China but Chinese economy should still grow 10 per cent this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Friday.
Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called during his first visit to China for the faster appreciation of the yuan, arguing that a more flexible exchange rate is in China’s interests to protect its economic stability and avoid global trade imbalances.
A 10-per-cent rate of growth would be lower than China’s 11.4-per-cent pace reported in 2007, the largest growth it had seen in 13 years.
The World Bank predicted this month that China’s economy would expand 9.6 per cent this year.
On his visit to Beijing, Strauss-Kahn met with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as well as China’s finance and trade minister and its central bank chief.
China had had a fixed exchange rate between its yuan and the dollar until July 2005. Since then, the yuan, which the central bank now manages against a basket of currencies, has fallen 13 per cent in value against the greenback. It has risen against the euro, however.