AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE and BLOOMBERG in Beijing and Singapore

Beijing will probably not revalue the yuan any time soon, a World Bank economist said yesterday.

Homi Kharas, the bank's chief economist for the region, also said adjusting the yuan's value against the US dollar might not be the best way of reducing imbalances in global trade.

The yuan is pegged at about 8.28 to the US dollar. Companies and trade officials in the United States have said this gives mainland exporters an unfair advantage by making their goods cheaper and more competitive at a time when the US is running record trade and budget deficits.

Dr Kharas said China had a "very modest" overall current account surplus, which had shrunk this year because of higher oil prices.

"On the trade side, the real economy doesn't show any significant imbalances," Dr Kharas said.

In its twice-yearly review of East Asian economies released yesterday, the World Bank forecast that growth in China's US$1.4 trillion economy may slow to a revised 7.8 per cent next year, from a revised 9.2 per cent this year.

The bank report said that even though the economic expansion was led by investment rather than consumption, growth this year still appeared too high. However, it said it did not expect the use of drastic measures to be imminent and that the mainland economy would likely experience a soft landing.

It also cautioned that using interest rates as the key tool in increasing the role of the market in investment decisions had not yet been used fully.

Meanwhile, the bank is predicting the growth of the Hong Kong economy will slow sharply from 7.4 per cent this year to 4.6 per cent in 2005