French FM says Chinese currency undervalued

CANBERRA, Australia – French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he will discuss China’s need to increase the value of its currency when he visits Beijing this week.

Juppe told reporters through an interpreter in the Australian capital Canberra on Sunday that he believes “that the yuan is undervalued at present.”

Beijing is under pressure from Washington and other trading partners to ease currency controls and other measures that they complain keep the yuan undervalued and swell China’s trade surplus.

Juppe will visit Beijing on Wednesday for talks ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 rich and developing nations in Cannes, France, in November. The summit will discuss the global economic crisis and high levels of sovereign debt owed to China.