China remains on course to gradually put in place a managed floating exchange rate system, President Hu Jintao said in a speech released on Friday amid pressure on Beijing to let its yuan currency 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," Hu said, according to a transcript of the speech.
He was reiterating China's long-standing description of its exchange rate policy.
"After the international financial crisis, we were confronting great difficulties, so maintaining a basically stable renminbi exchange rate helped promote global financial stability," Hu added.
Hu made the speech on Thursday at a closed-door session at a summit of leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China in the Brazilian capital. China's Foreign Ministry posted a copy of the speech on its Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn) on Friday.
The United States has increased its calls recently on China to allow its currency to strengthen, saying Beijing keeps the yuan deliberately undervalued to help Chinese exports.
Officials from some developing countries have also expressed concern about the yuan in recent weeks, including Brazil's finance minister, who said a stronger Chinese currency would be good for the global economy.
Economists said Hu's comment seemed in line with China's approach to foreign exchange policy.
"I'd say this is what they've always said, and it doesn't sound like this is anything we don't already know. We still don't know when it will begin. There's just a lot of speculation now because of the strong Chinese data recently," said Mark Chandler, senior currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York.
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