Chinese vice minister of finance Li Yong (L), Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki (C) and ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda (R) attend a seminar at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad May 4, 2006. Finance ministers from China, Japan and South Korea called on Thursday for more financial cooperation among Asian countries and said they would look further into the idea of regional currency units. [Reuters]

Li Yong said at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank that Chinese government was now considering a second increase in interest rates this year, in order to bring growth to a better balance.

"I think in the future we will make interest rate adjustments if necessary, but we should not make abrupt adjustments," Li said.

China raised bank lending rates last month for the first time since October 2004, after announcing that economic growth in the first quarter of the year was 10.2 per cent.

Some analysts believe further rate increases are in the pipeline following assurances last month that the government was conscious of social and environmental difficulties being caused by an excessive growth, the Independent of the United Kingdom reported on Monday.

Joseph Tan, an economist at Standard Chartered, said: "China isn't slowing down any time soon - the hike was clearly an attempt to slow things down but this will not be the last interest rate hike we will see."

Li said that in addition to restraining economic growth, the government was increasingly anxious to tackle its trade surplus, which has been a mounting concern in the European Union and the US. "We try to achieve a balance between imports and exports," he said.