Abrupt yuan rise would trigger havoc in China: Experts

BEIJING: A sharp revaluation in the yuan would trigger mass factory closures and job losses in China, analysts say, backing up the government's strident defence of its controversial exchange rate policy.

Premier Wen Jiabao told European leaders last week that the 20-40 percent appreciation demanded by critics would destroy Chinese firms and lead to social upheaval by triggering widespread unemployment.

The premier's claims have merit, experts say, warning that any dramatic shift in the value of the yuan would be harmful not only to export-driven China but also to a global economy struggling to recover from the financial crisis.

"If suddenly or within a few months China's renminbi is revalued by such an amount, most companies in the export sector will be out of business," said Lu Ting, a Hong Kong-based economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

"It does not make sense for any country to have a very big one-off revaluation in such a short time unless they are in a really big mess."

China appeared to bow to international pressure for a stronger currency in June, promising to let the yuan trade more freely against the dollar while ruling out any large market fluctuations.

Since then, the yuan has only gained around two percent against the greenback, angering US and European policymakers who say the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving Chinese exporters an unfair edge.

In Brussels, Wen countered that many Chinese exporters had profit margins of just two to three percent, and told his critics to back down.

"Should the yuan appreciate by 20 to 40 percent, as demanded by some people, a large number of Chinese export enterprises will go bankrupt, the workers will lose their jobs... making it hard for society to remain stable," Wen said.

"The world will by no means benefit from a crisis in the Chinese economy," he added, pledging to "gradually allow more flexibility in the yuan exchange rate while maintaining its basic stability".

China's top central banker Zhou Xiaochuan, in Washington for an annual International Monetary Fund meeting, said Friday that the yuan would move gradually towards an "equilibrium" level but rejected any "shock therapy".

Ian Sloan, an economics fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stressed that the legitimacy of China's communist rulers rests on guaranteeing rapid economic growth year after year.

A sudden change in the yuan's value could set off "a chain reaction of factory closures and layoffs across the interconnected networks that drive China's export-oriented economy", he wrote in a blog post.

"In the short term, China might be able to manipulate legislation, the banking sector, and welfare levers to prop up key industries or regions.

"But in the long term, it is uncertain if these steps would be enough to preserve social stability or continued loyalty to the Communist Party."

Lu at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said he supported calls by US and European policymakers for further reform of the exchange rate regime but that their current demands went too far.

The House of Representatives last month passed a bill inviting the US government to consider Beijing's currency policy as an improper trade subsidy, allowing the Commerce Department to slap retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods.

"It is wise for US politicians to impose some pressure on China but to ask for something that is not practical or even harmful is not good," said Lu.

Hong Kong-based Credit Suisse economist Tao Dong said: "I think a rapid currency appreciation would probably do damage to the Chinese export sector, which typically is a low-margin business."

China's trade surplus shrank to 20.03 billion dollars in August as imports accelerated, growing a larger-than-expected 35.2 percent year-on-year while exports growth slowed to 34.4 percent.

Wen's remarks come amid fears of a global currency war after several countries including Japan intervened in recent weeks to prevent their currencies rising to levels that would endanger their exports.

"Everyone is guilty -- it's not just the Chinese," Tao said.

Despite claims that China has dragged its heels on exchange rate reforms, Tao said Beijing had taken other less obvious steps to curb its ballooning trade surplus.

Official moves this year to hike minimum wages across the country will increase the cost of production and, eventually, help curb overseas shipments of Chinese products and boost demand for imports, Tao told media.

"It will achieve the same purpose as revaluing the exchange rate," he said.