BEIJING, April 10 (Reuters) - The trend towards a better balance in China's trade reinforces the case for the yuan to remain basically stable, the Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday.
The fact that China in March had its first monthly trade deficit in six years, even though the yuan had held steady, had shown yet again that the exchange rate was not decisive in determining trade flows, Yao Jian, the ministry's spokesman, said on its website, www.mofcom.gov.cn.
"The continuous improvement in China's international trade balance has created the conditions for the yuan's exchange rate to stay basically stable," he said.
The trade surplus, which shrank 77 percent in the first quarter to $14.49 billion, would be lower for the year as a whole than in 2009, partly because China would continue to increase its imports, he added.
Mofcom has repeatedly voiced its opposition to a stronger currency, putting itself at odds with the central bank, which would like a firmer exchange rate to help dampen inflation.
A staunch defender of Chinese exporters, the ministry frets that a stronger yuan would erode already-thin manufacturing profit margins and that the international economy is not yet back on a solid footing.
"The world economy is in the process of recovery. We are still very much concerned that global demand is still weak, and protectionism is still rising," Vice Commerce Minister Yi Xiaozhun said on Saturday at the Boao Forum for Asia on the southern island of Hainan.
He was speaking the day after the United States set final anti-dumping duties ranging from 30 percent to 99 percent on more than $1 billion of Chinese-made steel pipe in one of the biggest U.S. trade cases on record. (Reporting by Zhou Xin, Langi Chiang and Alan Wheatley)