[2005-11-11]

(Rapaport...SinoCast, SHANGHAI) China's leading industrial and commercial city, is also a leading diamond exchange center. The Shanghai Diamond Exchange, located at Jinmao Mansion in Pudong New Area, opened five years ago under approval of China's State Council. It is the only one with foreign investment among the various exchanges of stocks, future, metal, and oil etc. in China. On October 19, 2004, this exchange officially became the 24th international diamond bourse received by World Federation of Diamond Bourses. After five-years of development, diamonds worth $383 million have been traded in the exchange, according to the statistics from Shanghai Customs. Since its establishment, Shanghai Diamond Exchange has imported diamonds worth $356 million, and exported $27 million. Copyright © 2005 SinoCast LLC © 2005 Dialog, a Thomson business. All rights reserved.     The higher-than-expected export figures were expected to bring more pressure from the United States on Beijing. China's trade gap with the U.S. hit $162 billion last year, the largest imbalance ever recorded with a single country, and is forecast to approach $200 billion this year. President George W. Bush is expected to raise that issue, and U.S. complaints over China's currency policies, during a visit to Beijing later this month. Washington contends that the Chinese currency, the yuan, is undervalued due to foreign exchange restrictions imposed by Beijing. U.S. officials argue that a 2.1 percent revaluation in July, to 8.1 yuan to the dollar, was not a significant enough adjustment. China is gradually relaxing its currency controls, but officials have said they will allow the yuan's value to gradually adjust through market trends, rather than one-off revaluations. Although China's trade worldwide varies, with some countries running consistent surpluses, export growth recently has outpaced imports. China's exports from January to October jumped 31 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $614.5 billion, while imports grew about 17 percent, to $534 billion, the Customs Administration reported. Copyright ©2005 The Associated Press © 2005 Dialog, a Thomson business. All rights reserved.