China warns Japan on currency devaluation

China has urged Japan to stick to its pledge of avoiding to suppress the value of its currency. China fears recent monetary actions by its Asian neighbor and other industrialized nations will hurt global growth. As the yen continued sliding against the US dollar and other global currencies on Friday, China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming urged major governments to stop depreciating their currencies under efforts to boost their exports. "I'm worried that competitive devaluation will lead to oversupply of money and will have a negative effect on global economic growth," he told reporters in Beijing, responding to a question about Japan's monetary policy.Japan's newly-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has publicly called for a weaker yen to boost exports and economic growth. He has pushed the country's central bank to fight economic stagnation with higher inflation. As a result, the yen has fallen about 20 percent against the dollar since the middle of last year. However, the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) biggest industrialized and emerging economies agreed at a meeting in February to refrain from competitive devaluation, as well as to keep markets open and to resist protectionist measures. At the time, emerging economies not only criticized Japan's monetary policy but also the United States Federal Reserve program of unlimited bond buying aimed at pumping money into the economy. In his latest message, Chen appealed to Japan, the US and other industrialized nations to stick to their anti-devaluation pledge. If efforts to drive down the values of major currencies were continuing, he said, this would deliver a huge shock to developing countries by depressing their exports.