China and the US have the basis for an agreement at the summit of the Group of 20 leading nations next month on setting targets to cut trade imbalances, according to an adviser to the Chinese central bank.
Li Daokui, a member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee and professor at Tsinghua University, said there had been “good progress” at the weekend meeting of G20 finance ministers in South Korea which had moved debate from the “surface issue” of nominal exchange rates to “talking about the substance of rebalancing world trade”.
“China should not be afraid of numerical targets for reducing its trade surplus,” Mr Li told the Financial Times. “China is well positioned politically and economically to make this adjustment.”