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In a speech at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the I.M.F. official, John P. Lipsky, who is the first deputy managing director, offered a grim prognosis for the world’s wealthiest countries, which are at a level of indebtedness not recorded since the aftermath of World War II.

For the United States, “a higher public savings rate will be required to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability,” mr. Lipsky said.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China released a separate study Monday morning in Beijing showing that American companies increasingly felt unwelcome in China as a result of policies aimed at increasing government procurement from domestic companies instead of foreign ones.

The United States and other industrialized countries, as well as some developing countries, have been putting pressure on the I.M.F. to criticize China for its large-scale intervention in currency markets to hold down the value of the renminbi against the dollar. But mr. Lipsky refrained from chastising China in his speech, which Chinese officials would have found particularly offensive if he had done so in Beijing.

The I.M.F.’s staff concluded in a report last summer that the renminbi was “substantially undervalued, ” and that this was contributing to China’s large trade surpluses in recent years. China has blocked the release of that report, a prerogative of the I.M.F.’s member countries, although most allow the release of the I.M.F. staff’s reports on their economies.

The Chinese commerce minister, Chen Deming, said Sunday at the same conference that China might run a trade deficit in March, after years of surpluses, said Xinhua, the official news agency.

A trade deficit for the current month would be a public relations bonanza for Chinese officials in pushing back against United States pressures for revaluation of the renminbi.

China typically announces its monthly trade during the ninth to 12th day of the next month. If it follows that schedule next month, the trade surplus will be released shortly before the April 15 deadline mandated by the United States Congress to declare whether any foreign country, including China, manipulates the value of its currency.

Western economists have predicted that most, if not all, of China’s trade surplus will evaporate in March, but they have described this as a fluke of the calendar. Virtually all Chinese export factories closed for the last two weeks of February in observance of the Lunar new Year, which was unusually late this year. many struggled to reopen at full capacity because migrant workers were slow to return after the holidays.

The flow of goods to export ports slowed in March as a result, even as imports continued.

Mr. Chen also said China would not sit back if the United States declared China a currency manipulator and imposed sanctions, Xinhua reported.

The Commerce Ministry tends to represent the views of exporters. like the Commerce Department in the United States, the ministry does not have the authority to engage in international currency negotiations. But unlike commerce officials in the United States, who have a strict policy of not commenting on currency issues, commerce officials in China have been outspoken to the domestic Chinese media in recent months in condemning any appreciation of the currency.

This has limited the room to maneuver for officials at the central bank and other agencies in charge of currency issues.

Mr. Lipsky said the average ratio of debt to gross domestic product in advanced economies was expected this year to reach the level that prevailed in 1950. Even assuming that fiscal stimulus programs are withdrawn in the next few years, that ratio is projected to rise to 110 percent by the end of 2014, from 75 percent at the end of 2007.

The ratio is expected to be close to or to exceed 100 percent for five members of the Group of 7 countries — Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States — by 2014. Canada and Germany are the other G-7 members.

“Addressing this fiscal challenge is a key near-term priority, as concerns about fiscal sustainability could undermine confidence in the economic recovery,” mr. Lipsky said. Maintaining public debt at postcrisis levels could reduce potential growth in advanced economies as much as half a percentage point annually, compared with projections before the crisis, he said.

Sewell Chan reported from Washington.

Keith Bradsher reported from Beijing and Sewell Chan from Washington.

I.M.F. Warns Wealthiest Nations About Their Debt

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