The Associated Press

BEIJING - China will keep its politically sensitive exchange-rate controls "for a long time to come," the country's chief foreign-exchange regulator was quoted Monday as saying, rejecting claims its currency is undervalued and costing American jobs.

The comments came amid growing pressure from China's trading partners for Beijing to let the yuan rise in value and eventually trade freely. The United States and other governments contend the government-set exchange rate is up to 40 percent too low, making Chinese exports unfairly cheap and hurting foreign competitors.

"China's managed floating exchange-rate system conforms to the realities of China and it will continue for a long time to come," the official Xinhua News Agency paraphrased Guo Shuqing as saying in an interview. Guo is a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China and director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Chinese leaders say they plan eventually to let the yuan trade freely on world markets. But they haven't announced a timetable and say taking such a step immediately could cause a damaging shot to the country's poorly developed banks and financial industries.

China has fixed the value of the yuan at about 8.28 to the U.S. dollar since 1994. The currency is allowed to fluctuate by a fraction of a percentage point in tightly regulated daily trading.

The Xinhua report of Guo's remarks gave no new details on when China might ease such controls. But his rejection of foreign criticism was unusually pointed.

"The allegation that the Chinese currency is undervalued and that it has cost American jobs is unfounded," Xinhua paraphrased Guo as saying in an interview. "Our study shows that the impact of exchange rate on the economy and employment has been overexaggerated."

Guo was quoted as saying Chinese workers are paid only 3 percent as much as their American counterparts.

Guo also said that countries that are criticizing China's exchange-rate policy "have in fact benefited from the rapid growth of the Chinese economy" as its imports rise, Xinhua said.