China urged to open up markets

China should open its financial sector further to foreign competition to help it become more than an exporter of low-cost manufactured goods, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said yesterday.

"The risks for China are greater in moving too slowly than in moving too quickly towards transparent, liquid, stable capital markets," Paulson said in an address to the Shanghai Futures Exchange which capped a four-day Asian visit.

He warned that China's growth was becoming "increasingly imbalanced" because it was overly dependent on exports and so carried the seeds of future problems if reforms lagged.