China Killed IMF Report on Their Currency Manipulation

Buried in the article IMF warns wealth nations of debt is this gem:

The I.M.F.’s staff concluded in a report last summer that the renminbi was “substantially undervalued, ” and that this was contributing to China’s large trade surpluses in recent years. But China has blocked the release of that report, a prerogative of the I.M.F.’s member countries, although most allow the release of the I.M.F. staff’s reports on their economies.

China didn't like the IMF call out their currency manipulation so they bury the report? Gets even better. Be prepared for a propaganda war due to a statistical anomaly, (really, who does trust official Chinese statistics on their economy?), China will report a trade deficit:

The Chinese commerce minister, Chen Deming, said Sunday at the same conference that China might run a trade deficit in March, after years of surpluses, said Xinhua, the official news agency.

A trade deficit for the current month would be a public relations bonanza for Chinese officials in pushing back against U.S. pressures for revaluation of the renminbi. China typically announces its monthly trade during the 9th to 12th day of the next month. If it follows that schedule next month, the trade surplus will be released shortly before the April 15 deadline mandated by the U.S. Congress to declare whether any foreign country, including China, manipulates the value of its currency.

Western economists have predicted that most, if not all, of China’s trade surplus would evaporate in March, but they have described this as a fluke of the calendar. Virtually all Chinese export factories closed for the last two weeks of February in observance of the Lunar New Year, which was unusually late this year, and many struggled to reopen at full capacity because many migrant workers were slow to return after the holidays.

The flow of goods to export ports slowed in March as a result, even as imports continued.

While we have some freaking out on Congress stepping up the pressure to confront China's currency manipulation, look at the lengths China will go to to keep their RMB low.

The 0/congress/bills/111/s3134">Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2010 has been introduced and 130 members of Congress signed a letter to the Obama administration to take action against China on currency manipulation.

For some background, read China, the ultimate protectionist.

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