The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and five other North American steel industry trade associations have announced the drafting and mailing of a letter to the US, Canadian and Mexican Trade and Finance Ministers urging "strong and coordinated" efforts during the G-20 Summit and beyond to achieve "a large and sustained appreciation" of China's currency (the RMB). Those signing the letter, Canadian Steel Producers Association (CSPA), the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports (CPTI), the Mexican Steel Producers Association (Canacero), the Specialty Steel Industry of North America (SSINA) and the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), have stated they believe that without a meaningful change in the Chinese government's currency policy, it will not be possible to "eliminate the structural imbalances that contributed to the global economic crisis or to achieve the NAFTA governments' major goals for economic recovery, job creation and significantly increasing exports-especially of manufactured goods".
"The Chinese government's ongoing massive interventions to keep the RMB pegged to the US dollar result in a seriously undervalued exchange rate," the letter explained. "It has caused the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs in North American over the past decade, and is now a major impediment to economic recovery and industrial employment in the NAFTA region." The letter also noted that "the RMB is the most seriously undervalued major currency in the world...giving Chinese manufacturers a 40 percent artificial competitive advantage."