Balanced growth in Asia needed to ease pressure on US consumption: Zeti.

(From Business Times (Malaysia))

ONLY a shift in the direction of global trade, not the adjustment of East Asian exchange rates, will address the structural imbalances caused by the US' ballooning current account deficit, says Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

The US, the largest buyer of the world's goods and services, has been leaning on East Asian economies to free their currencies vis-a-vis the US dollar. The peg, the argument goes, has kept currencies such as the yuan artificially cheap and killed US competition, costing jobs and inflating its already bloated trade deficit with the region, which economists warn may not be …