Suppressing China’s currency will not have a “significant” impact on Western and US jobs markets, according to David Arkless, executive board member at Manpower and vice president of the China International Council for the Promotion of Multinational Corporations (CICPMC).

“I have no idea why we people get heated up about the exchange rate of theRenminbi (RMB) [China’s currency]. That has been Chinese government policy for at least 12 years. It has been an obvious one of keeping the exchange rate down to promote exports that are bought by the US and Western Europe.

“China has amassed the highest deposit of euros and dollars in the world. There are more dollars, freely available for government use in China than in the US. What the Chinese are doing with those foreign currency reserves is lending it back to the US, which is why the US has the biggest budget deficit it has ever had.

“The Americans and the Europeans talk about ‘unfair competition’. The Americans are doing virtually the same by printing money. There should be no significant impact on jobs markets, in my opinion, because of the exchange rate issue.

“If you look at China’s export performance over the last two years, the proportion of exports from China as an expenditure of GDP has fallen not risen, so the G20 guys that don’t like China are picking on a country whose export performance is actually deteriorating.”