Floating currency rate will come, vows China

China is on course to gradually introduce a managed, floating exchange-rate system, its President, Hu Jintao, said in a speech released yesterday, as pressure mounted on Beijing to let the yuan strengthen.

"We have always moved toward implementing a managed, floating exchange-rate system based on principles of acting on our own initiative in a controlled and gradual manner," Mr Hu told a summit of leaders of the Bric nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China. "After the international financial crisis we were confronting great difficulties, so maintaining a basically stable exchange rate helped promote global financial stability." The US has accused China of keeping the yuan undervalued to help exports.