South Korea said Wednesday it expects China to cooperate on easing global economic imbalances and other contentious issues at next week\'s G20 summit in Seoul.
 

South Korea said Wednesday it expects China to cooperate on easing global economic imbalances and other contentious issues at next week\'s G20 summit in Seoul.

Beijing knows "balanced global growth is beneficial to all countries. I\'m positive that China will be cooperative in handling various issues at the G20 summit," President Lee Myung-Bak told a press conference.

Lee said earlier this week he is hopeful of resolving vexed trade and currency disputes at the November 11-12 Group of 20 summit, which follows a meeting last month of the grouping\'s finance ministers.

The ministers vowed to move towards more market-determined exchange rate systems and "refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies" when they met in the South Korean city of Gyeongju.

They pledged to work to reduce excessive imbalances and to maintain current account imbalances at "sustainable" levels, but set no specific targets.

The United States and Europe accuse China of deliberately holding down the value of the yuan to benefit exporters. China says irresponsibly loose US monetary policy is causing a wave of speculative cash to flood emerging markets in search of higher non-dollar returns.

Lee said Wednesday the Gyeongju meeting agreed a basic framework to address global imbalances and he expects progress in Seoul.

He also said South Korea and the United States have agreed to complete work on their long-stalled free trade agreement (FTA) before next week\'s summit, and expressed hope eventually of reaching such accords with China and Japan.

Congressional opponents of the US-South Korea pact signed in 2007 want more access for US automakers and beef exporters.

Lee spoke Tuesday with US President Barack Obama on the FTA and said both agreed "to work hard to come to a mutually acceptable agreement... I\'m quite positive we\'ll reach an agreement acceptable to both sides".

The pact would create "good-quality" jobs in both countries, he said.