BEIJING, Nov 2 (Reuters) - China will keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable to give its exporters and manufacturers a more predictable economic environment, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said.
Chen, who made the comments at the Canton Fair, China's top trade fair, said policy consistency was necessary as external demand remained rife with uncertainties.
His relatively blunt defence of China's controversial exchange rate management contrasted with comments on Friday by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan that Beijing was committed to yuan reform and had used exchange rate stability as a special measure to cope with the global financial crisis.
"The yuan's exchange rate will also maintain basic stability, making the future situation predictable for our export industry and domestic manufacturers," Chen said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
China revalued the yuan against the dollar in 2005 and allowed it to steadily appreciate until the middle of last year, but then re-established a virtual peg against the U.S. currency to help cushion its economy against the impact of the crisis.
Chen noted that while more businesses attended this year's fall session of the Canton Fair than in 2008, transaction volumes fell 3.6 percent compared with a year earlier.
On the whole, though, he said China's exports were beginning to recover and so were its imports, offering significant support to the global economy.
The Commerce Ministry said last week that China's exports faced a "hard and tortuous" path to recovery. (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)