BEIJING, Oct 8 (Reuters) – China has no need or intention to use yuan depreciation for a trade competitive advantage and has never engaged in competitive currency devaluation, the central bank said, rejecting criticisms from western trading partners including the EU.
The central bank remarks push back against claims that China keeps its currency undervalued to make its exports cheaper and imported goods pricier, and were issued as the EU’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic was in Beijing to discuss narrowing the bloc’s trade deficit with China.
China’s yuan has strengthened about 4% against the US dollar so far this year, defying the drag from a widening yield gap between US and Chinese government bonds.
In a June speech, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde urged global leaders to discuss undervaluation of the Chinese currency as a facet of the imbalances endangering the global economy. The bloc is concerned about its trade imbalance with China, which reached €360.6 billion in 2025, according to EU data, up 15% from the previous year.
China lets the market play a decisive role in exchange rate formation, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement, adding that it does not preset exchange rate target levels or intervene in long-term exchange rate trends.
“Attributing a decline in domestic industrial competitiveness, the weakening of fiscal and financial discipline and complex structural problems simply to the exchange rates of other nations amounts to evading and shirking one’s own responsibility for making necessary adjustments,” the PBOC said.
China will report additional foreign exchange-related data to the International Monetary Fund starting from 2027, the central bank said.
(Reporting by Yukun Zhang, Qiaoyi Li and Liz LeeEditing by Peter Graff)
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