Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda Sunday said that the pace of the adjustment of Chinese yuan should be decided by the Chinese authorities themselves.

"A flexible yuan would be in the interests of the Chinese economy," Kuroda told reporters at the end of a two-day meeting of the European and Asian finance ministers in Vienna.

"But only a gradual adjustment is appropriate for a country like China," he said, adding China has been a powerhouse for world economic growth in recent years.

Kuroda said China ended the yuan's peg to the US dollar last July, replacing it with a managed float with reference to a basket of major international currencies.

"The move has resulted in more flexibility of the yuan," he said.

Speaking at the same news conference, Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said a "gradual" move to a more flexible yuan exchange rate would be good for world economy.

"A more gradual flexibility of the yuan would be a good thing," Grasser added.

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2006)