Yuan hits record high against US dollar

15:22, September 13, 2010

China's currency, the yuan, hit a high against the U.S. dollar Monday, as the central bank set the medium reference rate as one dollar exchanging 6.7509 yuan. Meanwhile, the currency also gained value against a spate of other world currencies.

Also on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner complained about the too slow progress of Beijing's allowing its currency to appreciate. Geithner said the yuan has made "very, very little" progress.

In an interview with the Journal conducted on Friday, Geithner was asked if he was satisfied with China's progress on the yuan. Geithner replied: "Of course not."

Geithner is due to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee on Thursday to present the Obama administration's latest view of what the United States should do to press China to reform its exchange rate practices.

The yuan is now up 0.96 percent from June 19, when the People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced the abolition of a two-year peg to the dollar.

The yuan was little changed for more than a decade before the 2005 revaluation in which the PBOC shifted to "a managed floating exchange rate based on market supply and demand with reference to a basket of currencies", to replace a single exchange rate system solely decided by the central bank.

The reform was interrupted for nearly two years since July 2008 until mid-June this year during which China re-pegged the yuan to the dollar to help fight the global financial crisis.

By People's Daily Online