China calls on Europe to beef up fiscal consolidation
China said on Saturday that Europe needs to reduce sovereign debt risks and "beef up" fiscal consolidation in its weaker economies.
"At the current stage, the European sovereign debt crisis remains severe," said Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China.
"The various countries concerned need to seek political consensus, beef up fiscal consolidation efforts, and make intraregional cooperation mechanisms more effective so as to dispel market mistrust and enable stabilizers to play their role."
Yi made the remarks in a statement at the opening of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank spring meetings in Washington.
The Chinese official noted the IMF had advised advanced countries to reduce their debt to a pre-crisis average of 60 percent of gross domestic product by 2030.
He urged them to strive to reach the debt target "to address global imbalances from its root cause," clearly absolving China from widespread criticism that its artificially weak yuan currency is in part to blame for excessive trade surpluses and deficits.
Taking a broad swipe at the big advanced countries, without naming the United States and others, Yi called on them to get their finances in order to address the dangerous imbalances.
According to IMF forecasts, the US debt ratio is expected to rise to 99.5 percent this year and to 105.6 percent by 2013.
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