The International Monetary Fund has chosen not to call the yuan "substantially" undervalued, a move that recognises China's efforts to free up its exchange rate and avoids friction with an increasingly influential shareholder.
The summary of an annual review of China's policies omitted the contentious word, used by IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn as recently as June, which has long riled Beijing.
Several members of the IMF's 24-member executive board believed the Chinese currency was too cheap, the fund said. But others said a structural reduction in the balance of payments surplus was already unfolding thanks to past steps to boost consumption, while others took issue with an assessment by IMF staffers that the yuan was substantially undervalued.
"This does reflect a softening in the board's position about the degree of adjustment that is needed in the Chinese exchange rate regime," said Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former IMF official.
He said this was reflected in statements to the IMF board, which met on Monday, that China had already made a big move towards greater currency flexibility and progress in rebalancing demand.
Beijing dropped the yuan's 23-month-old peg to the dollar and reverted to a managed float on June 19th. China's trade surplus has also shrunk considerably as government efforts to pump up the economy have sucked in imports of commodities and capital goods.
"On both counts this conciliatory tone is a little premature, because despite the announcement there hasn't been that much movement of the Chinese currency. Any notion that they have in fact successfully started rebalancing their economy is also quite premature," Mr Prasad said.
The yuan has risen 0.7 per cent against the dollar since it was unshackled from the US currency.
Mr Prasad said IMF economists reckoned the yuan was still between 5 per cent and 27 per cent undervalued depending on the methodologies used. A diplomat in Beijing confirmed the range.
"Several directors agreed that the exchange rate is undervalued. However, a number of others disagreed with the staff's assessment of the level of the exchange rate, noting that it is based on uncertain forecasts of the current account surplus," the IMF said.
Mr Prasad said IMF economists are projecting a big rebound in the current account surplus, which has fallen to around 4 per cent of gross domestic product, whereas China is contending that it will stay at the new, lower level.
People familiar with the board's deliberations said representatives of the Group of Seven rich nations supported the IMF staff's conclusions but did not specifically call the yuan "substantially" undervalued.
Reflecting the discussion, the board's concluding statement omitted the disputed phrase.
China was so angry with the Fund's exchange rate views that it withheld cooperation on the annual review from 2007 to 2009. Beijing, though, has gradually been gaining clout in the IMF. Last year it bought $50 billion worth of notes to beef up the fund's capital and a deputy governor of China's central bank, Zhu Min, has started work as a special assistant to Strauss-Kahn.
Reuters