Avoid competitive devaluation of currencies: Yi Gang

Chinese central bank Vice-Governor Yi Gang urged major economies on Monday to avoid the competitive devaluation of their currencies.

He added that China has taken global liquidity into full account when drafting out its monetary policy.

"We do not want a currency war. We hope the G20 countries comply with the joint statement and reach a consensus," Yi said. "The monetary policies of the countries should not only be based on their own economic situations, but should also try to prevent competitive devaluation of the currencies."

He said that while the world's major central banks are implementing quantitative easing monetary policies, China will hold on to its prudent monetary stance.

"The People's Bank of China has taken global liquidity into full consideration before staging out monetary policies," Yi added.

Yi said that maintaining a relatively low and moderate inflation rate is the central bank's top priority.

"We will continue to contain inflation and the inflation ratio throughout this year may be around 3 percent," he said.

He made the remarks while attending the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as a member.

He added that the liberalization of interest rates will be steadily pushed forward, but the difficulty is increasing as that reform is connected with property rights and market competition, Yi said.

"When the market is not fully competitive, it's very hard to further free interest rates," he said.