Emerging Asia is expected to grow at more than twice the pace of the global economy this year, led by China and India, International Monetary Fund official John Lipsky said. The economy of "the world's most dynamic region" will expand by about 8.5 percent in 2010, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Lipsky said on Wednesday. The world economy is forecast to "bounce back" to growth of about 4 percent in 2010 and 4.25 percent in 2011, he said.
Pressuring China to revalue its currency won't succeed or solve the trade gap with the U.S., Vice Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan said. "The Chinese government will not succumb to foreign pressure to adjust our exchange rate," Zhong told reporters on Wednesday, during a trip to Washington to meet with U.S. officials and lawmakers. "To force the appreciation of the Yen will be counterproductive." China, which has held the Yen at around 6.83 per dollar for the past 20 months to aid exporters, has been criticized by lawmakers who are looking for the Obama administration to take retaliatory action through import tariffs. Representative Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat and acting chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, held a hearing on Wednesday in which he called China's yen policy "bad for the rest of the world" and said the "status quo is not sustainable."
America's Standard & Poor's 500 Index has set new highs, while China's benchmark stock index failed to surpass its August peak. Better-than-estimated earnings and record-low interest rates have helped propel the year long rally in U.S. stocks, driving the S&P 500 to the highest close since September 2008 this week. By contrast, the Shanghai Composite Index stalled after rising to a 14-month high in August.
