BEIJING, June 3 -- China will not link the issue of reforming its currency with an international row over its booming textile exports, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said on Thursday.

    

Bo Xilai speaks at a news conference in Beijing May 30, 2005. [newsphoto]

Trying to link the two issues would complicate an already tense debate, he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of Asia-Pacific trade ministers on the South Korean resort island of Cheju.

    "We will not link the yuan issue with the textile issue because that is not appropriate," he said through an English interpreter.

    "If the Chinese economic circle has such a feeling that other countries are using the textile issue as an excuse to force China to make some adjustment to the value of its currency, then it can make the whole situation even more complicated."

    His remarks came hours after U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez arrived in Beijing for a three-day visit to try to ease tensions in the row over textile exports from China.

    Bo also said European and U.S. pressure to curb China's textile exports could harm talks to liberalise international trade, calling such pressure "protectionism."

    But he said China supported efforts by World Trade Organization member countries to strike a new trade deal and would not use the row over its textile exports to impede such efforts.

    U.S. manufacturers argue that China's policy of pegging the yuan near 8.28 to the dollar undervalues the Chinese currency by as much as 40 percent, giving exporters there an unfair advantage in world markets.

    China has long said that it intends to unshackle the yuan, also known as the renminbi, but insists it will choose when to do that.

    Bo told a news conference on Monday that China would consider its own development and the stability of the world economy in any decision it takes regarding the yuan.

(Source: China Daily/Agencies)