China has allowed its currency, yuan, to appreciate by more than 7.5 percent against the US dollar since it scrapped the yuan-dollar peg in July 2005, said the country's central bank.

The central bank has set the yuan central parity rate at 7.6538 to the dollar Tuesday, compared with 7.6512 on Monday when it hit a new high.

On May 18, the central bank announced for the first time since 1994 to widen the floating band of yuan against US dollar for daily spot trading on the interbank market from 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent. The yuan has kept hitting new high in the six trading days following the announcement.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi who led the second Sino-US strategic economic dialogue said in Washington last Thursday that the yuan's floating range would increase with market changes.

She said China would carry out the exchange rate reform in an independent, controllable and gradual way to maintain the yuan's strength.

The yuan has seen seesawing fluctuations versus the dollar since 2005. China has promised to deepen the exchange rate reform to allow the yuan to fluctuate in line with market supply and demand during the second strategic economic dialogue between the two countries.

(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2007)