US Treasury: Currency practices for nine countries including China require scrutiny

Economy and stock exchange

US President Donald Trump's administration said on Tuesday that no major trading partner has met the criteria for manipulating its currency, but nine countries, including China, are calling for great attention as Washington imposes tariffs and conducts negotiations to curb trade deficits.

The Treasury Department said in a half-yearly report to Congress that it had reviewed the policies of an expanded group of 21 major US trading partners and concluded that nine of them needed close attention due to currency practices.

Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam were the new additions to the watch list, which also includes China, Germany, Japan and South Korea, and India and Switzerland were omitted from the list of countries subject to additional scrutiny.

"No major trading partner has met the relevant legislative standards for 2015" as a manipulative currency, the ministry said in a statement.

The three criteria used by the Treasury to determine whether a country can be classified as a currency manipulator are a large trade surplus with the United States, a large current account surplus and indications of a continuous unilateral intervention in the currency.

China hopes the United States will not conduct unilateral assessments on the exchange rates of other countries, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Wednesday.

"Determining whether a country is manipulating its currency is not something the United States decides," he said.

"Relevant multilateral organizations have long conducted credible assessments of the exchange rates of countries' currencies."

The head of China's banking regulator said in an interview on Monday that the Chinese government has never taken any measures to devalue its currency deliberately.

In response to the report, Singapore's central bank said it was not manipulating its currency for export advantages, while Malaysia said its interventions were limited to ensure orderly functioning of the market and avoid excessive volatility.

The Treasury Department said Washington believes direct intervention by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) in the exchange rate was limited in the past year.

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