* Commerce Minister, bank regulator both caution on export outlook
* That concern seen feeding into careful policy steps
* Think-tank reiterates stable yuan needed
* To increase imports, reserves of strategic resources
By Jason Subler and Simon Rabinovitch
BEIJING, Dec 22 (Reuters) - China "cannot be blindly optimistic" that its export sector will improve next year, officials said on Tuesday, as the Ministry of Commerce vowed to maintain stable trade policies.
Exports have been hit hard by the global financial turmoil, falling 18.8 percent in the first 11 months compared with a year earlier.
Many economists expect exports to return to growth next year, but the ministry's statement serves as a reminder that policy makers will take time before they are confident that exporters are back on more solid footing.
"The world economy will turn for the better in 2010 but the recovery will still not be on solid ground, the influence of the crisis will still be felt, external demand will have difficulty returning to its level before the global financial crisis," the ministry said on its website (www.mofcom.gov.cn).
"China's external trade situation will be increasingly complex, our task more formidable and we cannot be blindly optimistic," it said in a statement summing up its policy moves in 2009 and plans for next year.
Continuing uncertainty over the strength of recovery in the United States, Europe and Japan looms as one of the biggest question marks for China's economy, the world's third largest.
With economic growth expected to surpass 8 percent this year, policy makers' focus is turning away from simply spurring activity and towards improving the makeup of the economy.
Some analysts are already pointing to the danger of overheating, with money supply growing at a record pace and evidence of bubbles forming in the real estate sector.
PRESSURE ON YUAN
Still, authorities have consistently pointed to weakness in exports as a
reason to move cautiously on tightening policy, including in reference to its
grip on the yuan
Liu Mingkang, head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, also expressed caution over the outlook for exports.
"Weak external demand, in our view, will be a long-term situation and the situation will not immediately improve," Liu told a conference organised by a research institution of the central bank. [ID:nBJB003625]
Even though exports fell just 1.2 percent in November from a year earlier, that was mainly due to the low base of comparison and did not mean exports had left their difficulties behind, Liu said.
"We cannot be blindly optimistic," he said.
Despite the official caution, the State Information Centre, a top government think-tank, forecast on Tuesday that exports would rise by about 6 percent next year, marking a recovery from this year's slump.
The think-tank warned in a report published in an official newspaper that the yuan would face mounting pressure to strengthen against the dollar next year, but said yuan appreciation would harm China's global competitiveness. [ID:nTOE5BK0AX]
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon kept up that pressure on Tuesday, telling an audience of university students in Beijing that a more flexible yuan would benefit China, in part by increasing its consumers' purchasing power. [ID:nBJB003628]
In its own statement, the Commerce Ministry did not outline the need for a stable currency, as it has often done in the past.
Instead, it spelled out steps it will take to improve balance in its trade, something that could tone down outside pressure for the yuan to strengthen and stoke demand for natural resources and other inputs.
"We will try to increase imports, supporting imports of high-tech equipment, of key parts and of materials unavailable domestically. We will increase imports and reserves of strategic resources in a timely manner, and we will aim to lift unreasonable restrictions on imports," it said. (Additional reporting by Zhou Xin and Clement Guillou in Beijing, and Lu Jianxin in Shanghai)