Summit talks likely to turn to dollar

China would like to see a diversification of the international currency system in the future and believes it would be "normal" if the issue came up at the "8+5 summit" involving the Group of Eight (G8) and emerging powers, Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei said yesterday.

But He, who is in charge of China's G8 meeting preparations, said he was not aware of Beijing asking for a discussion of reserve currencies at the high-level meetings in Italy.

He was responding to a Reuters report yesterday that quoted G8 sources as saying China wanted to talk about a new global reserve currency.