China's Hu prods West on trade, investment barriers

By Lucy Hornby and Kevin Yao

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao called on Friday for an end to "unreasonable" trade restrictions on developing countries, just days ahead of a U.S. presidential visit to his country that has been clouded by economic tensions.

In a speech to business and political leaders in Singapore, Hu made no mention of the Chinese yuan, a hot topic in global financial markets given the growing pressure from Washington for Beijing to revalue the currency.

Arguing that protectionism stood in the way of a global economic recovery, he called for a push to conclude the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks, which have been stalled for eight years.

"The inherent problems of the international economic system have not been fully addressed and a comprehensive world economic recovery still faces many uncertainties and destabilising factors," Hu said in a 20-minute speech.

"We must continue to promote trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation and oppose protectionism in all its manifestations, particularly the unreasonable trade and investment restrictions imposed on developing countries."

China's commerce minister hammered home the point by later telling reporters that developed members of APEC should live up to their pledges of free trade by 2010.

Chen Deming said the use of safeguard measures by "a certain large country" violates international pledges against protectionism, adding that not recognizing China as a free market leads to abuse of anti-dumping rules.

Although Chen did not name the United States, which recently for the first time imposed safeguard measures against Chinese tyres, the comments point to concessions China may be seeking ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to China, which starts on Sunday.