US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Wednesday that China needs to take advantage of strong economic conditions to speed up its move toward a market determined currency. "Time is of the essence here," Paulson told a gathering of academics and Washington officials at the Peterson Institute of International Economics.
He was speaking just weeks before a scheduled May 22-24 meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials who are coming to Washington to discuss economic reform. Paulson said it was "an unnatural act" for an economy as vibrant as China's to continue to have a currency whose value is not set in free and open markets.