UPDATE:PBOC Gov Urges US Care Over Crisis;Heads To US For Mtg

BEIJING --People's Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan urged the U.S. to consider the impact of its policies on the world during a high-level meeting on Thursday, then flew to the U.S. for a meeting that will also likely be attended by key members of the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

In a speech to the fifth U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, Zhou said the U.S. should assess and adjust its policies as necessary. He also called on the U.S. to deal with its economic imbalances by boosting savings as well as narrowing its fiscal and trade deficits.

However, as the U.S. members of his audience in Beijing represent the current U.S. administration entering its final couple of months, they will have little scope to act on his calls.

According to a person at the international department of the PBOC who declined to be named, Zhou will attend a meeting of the Group of 30 in New York from Dec. 4-6. The event will be hosted by Timothy Geithner, Obama's nomination for Treasury Secretary, in his current capacity as the president of the Federal Reserve of New York.

Larry Summers and Paul Volcker are also members of the group, a private, nonprofit international body composed of very senior representatives of the private and public sectors and academia.

Obama has named Summers as director of the National Economic Council and appointed Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, to head a new White House advisory board tasked with helping to lift the nation out of recession and stabilizing financial markets.

The PBOC official said it was unclear whether Zhou would meet with Geithner.

On the Chinese economy, Zhou said in the speech Beijing will step up its risk controls over outward investments and is confident of ensuring steady economic growth and financial stability.

"Both domestically and internationally, people are confident about the financial system in China," he said.

Zhou also said China should use the crisis as an opportunity to boost domestic demand.

"Against the background of a deteriorating economic crisis, China should not just tackle economic problems, but restructure its development model," he said.

Zhou repeated China's oft-stated position that maintaining fast economic growth is China's single greatest contribution to resolving the global financial crisis.

The contents of Zhou's speech at the SED were outlined to the media by Jin Qi, head of the PBOC's international department. Jin made no mention of the yuan when recounting Zhou's speech.

Earlier in the day, a senior U.S. government official said the yuan was discussed during the SED's morning session. He said the U.S. continued to press for reform and China maintained its commitment to reform.

China's yuan has hit the lower limit of its daily trading band against the dollar every day since Monday after the People's Bank of China abruptly moved its daily reference rate for the currency toward a weaker yuan at the start of the week.

The U.S. treasury has long maintained that China needs to allow the yuan to appreciate further, a line it has maintained throughout the financial crisis.

-Liu Li, Denis McMahon, Chen Juan and Terence Poon contributed to this story; Dow Jones Newswires; 8610 6588 5848; li.liu@dowjones.com