Premier Wen Jiabao Meeting with Citigroup CEO Charles Prince

On September 28, premier wen jiabao met with charles prince, chief executive officer of the Citigroup, and Robert Robin, former US secretary of treasury, who were invited by the CPAFFC, in the Great Hall of the People. Also present at the meeting were Liu Huaqiu, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office, Zhou Wenzhong, vice foreign minister, Li Xiaolin, vice president of the CPAFFC， and leading officials concerned of the People’s Bank of China.

In his remarks, Premier Wen said, the momentum of the development of Sino-US relations is good, and bilateral economic and trade relations keep moving forward. During my visit to the U.S. last year, President Bush and I reached consensus on five points in handling Sino-US economic and trade relations, the core of which is development, equality and mutual benefit. He hoped that the two sides would follow the above mentioned guidelines to maintain the sound and stable growth of Sino-US economic and trade relations.

Premier Wen briefed the guests on China’s present economic situation. On the issue of the exchange rate of Renmibi (RMB), he said, China has been following a managed floating exchange rate system based on the market supply and demand. RMB has been floating against the main international currencies ever since 1994 when China started the reform of RMB exchange rate system. In the four years preceding 1997, the floating range of RMB exchange rates was relatively great. Since 1998, to cope with the Asian financial crisis, the Chinese Government in a responsible manner committed itself not to devaluate RMB and narrowed the floating range of its exchange rate, thus contributing to the stability and development of economy and finance of Asia and the world. Premier Wen noted, improving RMB exchange rate mechanism and maintaining the basic stability of the rate on a reasonable and balanced level are the direction and goal of the reform of RMB exchange rate system.In recent years, China has done a lot of reform work for improving the RMB exchange rate mechanism, including the accelerated pace in the reform of State-owned commercial banks; convertibility under the RMB current accounts; steady relaxation of restrictions on capital accounts; a wider and steady opening of the capital market; an increase in the number of institutes from overseas in Chinese securities and stock market and foreign-funded enterprises; the easing of restrictions on financial market access and related businesses, and continuous increase in the number of products and scope of the financial market. Wen stressed, we will further advance the reform and forge a mechanism which is more adapted to the changes in market supply and demand with still better flexibility. This reform represents a systematic project involving a host of aspects.In this course, numerous factors should be taken into account, including China's macro economic performance, social development, international revenue and expenditure; the progress of reform on the banking sector and related spheres; and the economic and financial situation of neighboring countries and regions and the world economy and finances. China will adopt measures in all these aspects to push on the reform steadily and step by step, Wen said.