Hu Xiaolian, the director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said in a statement that balancing international payments is one of the major economic development targets set for the next five years.

SAFE will improve the managed floating exchange rate system and gradually make the yuan fully convertible under the capital account, she said in the statement.

China booked a current account surplus of 68.7 billion dollars at the end of 2004 and a surplus of 110.7 billion dollars under its capital account, as exports boomed and speculative money flowed in betting on yuan appreciation.

Beijing has been trying to curb hot money inflows and channel domestic capital out to ease appreciation pressure at home.

Hu vowed in the statement to enhance management over short-term capital flows and maintain financial safety.

According to the recently issued guidelines, the central government plans to "perfect the managed floating foreign exchange rate regime (and) progressively achieve yuan capital account convertibility."

Ha Jiming, an economist at China International Capital Corp, said full capital account liberalization will not happen until the banking sector is in a state where it is able to compete, both domestically and internationally.

That this is unlikely until at least two years after the sector is opened up to foreign competition at the end of next year, he argued.

"The door is still pretty much closed, there's a long way to go, but gradually releasing controls won't just help reduce pressure on the exchange rate," he said.

"The purpose is to increase the efficiency of excess savings allocation in China."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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