China yuan strengthens to new high against USD

BEIJING - China's currency, the Renminbi or the yuan, marched to a new record high against the US dollar on Tuesday.

The yuan strengthened 20 basis points to reach 6.093 per US dollar, the strongest since July 2005, when the country launched reforms in the exchange rate mechanism, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System.

The yuan's rise was partly attributed to poor US non-farm payroll data. The world's biggest economy added only 74,000 non-farm jobs in December, far less than what the most conservative analysts forecast.

The People's Bank of China, or the central bank, set the dollar-yuan central parity rate at 6.095 on Monday.

In China's foreign exchange spot market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 1 percent from the central parity rate each trading day.

The central parity rate of the yuan against the US dollar is based on a weighted average of prices before the opening of the market each business day.