(Bloomberg) -- The Chinese government needs to take steps to address global concerns about the nation's trade policies, said a top official at the International Monetary Fund.
“The U.S. is not alone in being concerned about Chinese trade practices,” IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said Tuesday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Senior Chinese officials “acknowledge that some of their practices” need to be addressed, he said.
“The time has come for them to address it,” said Lipton, the second-highest ranking official at the Washington-based fund, next to Managing Director Christine Lagarde. “They too need globalization. That's how they've had this spectacular growth, and that's how they'll have a strong future.”
Lipton's remarks come amid growing trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies. The Trump administration is expected this week to release a proposed list of Chinese products to be hit with tariffs, and China has already retaliated against U.S. duties on steel and aluminum.
Trump announced the China-focused tariffs after his officials concluded Beijing violates U.S. intellectual property in myriad ways, including by forcing American companies to transfer technology when doing business in China -- a practice U.S. businesses have complained about for years.
China Response
China will respond to any tariffs imposed by the U.S. against alleged violations of intellectual property rights with the same proportion, scale and intensity, the country's U.S. Ambassador Cui Tiankai said on Tuesday.
Lipton said the IMF remains optimistic about the global economy, despite rising trade tensions. “We're seeing strong enough growth to carry the global economy through at reasonably high levels,” he said. “But it's a cyclical recovery, and the world needs to be ready when that cycle ends.”
The IMF will release its latest global forecast at its annual spring meetings in Washington on April 17.
In January, the fund raised its forecast for world expansion to 3.9 percent this year and next, up 0.2 percentage point for both years from its projection in October. That would be the fastest rate since 2011, when the world was bouncing back from the financial crisis.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Mayeda in Washington at amayeda@bloomberg.net, Maria Tadeo in Madrid at mtadeo@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Sarah McGregor, Randall Woods
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