A leading Chinese financial official yesterday rejected suggestions the US dollar could be replaced quickly as the global reserve currency, as US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner arrived in China on his first official visit.

“In the short term I don't think we can find another currency to replace the US dollar,” said Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank and former head of the country's foreign exchange administrator. “The US dollar is the main currency because their economy is number one in terms of competitiveness, in terms of innovation.” Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Guo also raised doubts about a proposal from China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, to replace the dollar with a “super-sovereign reserve currency” based on special drawing rights issued by the International Monetary Fund.

“We've had SDRs for many years but everybody knows they don't work so well,” said Mr Guo. “People worry about US dollars very much because of the imbalances in the current account but that has been the case for many years – they have had a deficit in the current account since the very beginning of the 1970s.”