The exchange rate regime reform China is carrying out will have limited impacts on the country's exports, an official from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in Toronto Thursday.

"From my standpoint of view, the impact on ordinary or general trade is bigger than that on the processing trade," Yu Jianhua, international trade and economic affairs director of the Commerce Ministry, told reporters.

"However, on the whole it won't be that big," he added.

China's central bank announced on June 19 that it would further reform the exchange rate regime of the Chinese currency yuan to make the rate more flexible.

Noting that many developed countries restrict China's exports, Yu reiterated that China is opposed to any kind of trade protectionism.

Due to the global economic crisis, China's trade surplus declined dramatically. In the first five months of 2010, China's imports increased 57. 5 percent and its exports rose 33 percent.

As a result, China's trade surplus in the period dropped 60 percent year-on-year to 35.36 billion U.S. dollars, Yu said. In the same period in 2008 before the economic crisis, the surplus was 78 billion dollars.

He said that he is not optimistic about China's trade figures in 2010 given such factors as the global economic crisis, the European sovereign debt crisis, the impact of depreciation of the euro, the climbing labor cost in China and the rising cost of raw materials.

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