China would like to see the global currency exchange system, currently dominated by the US dollar, become more stable and diversified, a senior official told reporters Thursday.
Speaking on the sidelines of talks between the G8 powers and major emerging economies here, a Chinese official said that Beijing adviser Dai Bingguo had urged world leaders "to improve the international monetary system."
The official said China wants "to enhance the reserve currency and regulating regime, maintain a relative stability of the exchange rates of the main international reserve currencies and promote a more diversified and reasonable international currency system."
China and other emerging economies have argued that the dominance of the US dollar as the world's main reserve currency and in foreign exchange is a destabilising factor in the global economy and have called cautiously for reform.
They have so far met resistance from the G8 and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters there had been "no real discussion" of it at the summit and it was "not realistic" to expect progress in the near future.
"There was no real discussion about it — it may have been raised by someone at the meeting, I can't really recall that, but if it was raised, it wasn't a major part of the discussion," said Brown.
"In this present situation as we're trying to get out of a deep recession, I don't want to give the impression that there is some major change about to happen around the corner that suggests that the present arrangements are destabilised."
Chinese leader Hu Jintao was forced to leave Italy before the G8 summit got under way in order to deal with an outbreak of ethnic unrest.
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= Dow Jones News Wires contributed to this report =
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