BEIJING, June 6 -- China will gradually push for the full convertibility of the yuan, Vice Premier Huang Ju told a forum on Monday in a restatement of long-standing government policy.

    

Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju speaks to the International Monetary Conference, a grouping of senior commercial bankers, in China's capital Beijing June 6, 2005.  [Reuters]

Speaking to the International Monetary Conference, a grouping of senior commercial bankers, Huang said: "We will relax controls on cross-border capital flows on a selective and step-by-step basis and gradually achieve convertibility of the renminbi on the capital account."

    Huang gave no timetable for convertibility of the yuan, also known as the renminbi. The authorities have been slowly easing controls by, for example, letting Chinese tourists take more money abroad and encouraging companies to invest more overseas.

    China is under growing pressure to abandon the yuan's decade-old peg of near 8.3 to the dollar and to open its border to more non-trade-related transactions, steps that the United States and many independent economists believe would result in a strengthening of the currency.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Friday he believed Beijing would eventually relax its controlled currency regime.

    The vice premier also said China would be watchful in the way it runs monetary policy.

    "We will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy, make comprehensive use of various monetary policy tools and appropriately control the scale of monetary credit to prevent both inflation and deflation," he sad.

(source: China Daily/Agencies)