The calls for China to strengthen the official currency of Renminbi are "groundless", Zhang Shengman, managing director of the World Bank, said in a speech at an international financial forum held Friday in Shanghai.

Although China's trade surplus to the United States reached about US$100 billion, China's total trade surplus was about US$30 billion, only one-fifth of the total of developing countries, said Zhang.

The rapid increase of China's exports is the result of global manufacturing relocation, which means that some increased production in China is not newly-added production but was moved from Malaysia or Thailand, said Zhang.

"In addition, the exports of China only account for 5 percent of the global total, so it is unbelievable that China's increasing exports caused global deflation," he said.

However, Zhang suggested that some kind of mechanism for changing the exchange rate of the Renminbi be developed in the future, depending on China's economic circumstances, such as widening the fluctuating range of the Renminbi.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2003)