Double agenda, double pain

19 March 2010 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

A cheap yuan helps to protect makers of poorcountry exports, like toys and tyres. But China is also moving rapidly into richcountry goods, like highspeed trains, where currency matters less. So long as it pursues both goals, competitors at both ends will feel the squeeze.

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Geely, the Chinese car maker, may raise its stake in Manganese Bronze Holdings , the maker of London's black cabs, the UKbased company said on March 17. Geely has 19.9 percent of the company and may buy more shares to take its stake to 51 percent. Geely is also in talks to buy the Volvo brand from Ford .

Siemens switched sides in a consortium bid to build a Saudi Arabian highspeed rail network, joining up with a group of Chinese suppliers, according to the Financial Times. The German engineering group may supply electrification and signalling equipment for the $7 billion bid, along with China South Locomotive and China Railway Corporation.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators entered a bill that would force the Treasury department to take tougher action against perceived undervaluation in trade partners' currencies including removing the need to prove that a country deliberately held down its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage.

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