Threshold of 7 yuan to dollar not crucial

The yuan's so-called psychological threshold of 7 to the US dollar is not so important for the Chinese economy, analysts said on Thursday, after the central bank rejected an "irresponsible" media report that the yuan had fallen below that level in Wednesday's trading.

The yuan traded between 6.95 and 6.9666 per dollar on Wednesday, the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said on its microblog on Wednesday night. "But some irresponsible media reports said that the onshore rate of the yuan broke the psychological threshold of 7.0," the central bank said.

"Technically, the media report that the yuan had broken that level is wrong," said Xiao Lisheng, an economist at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "The report sent a misleading signal to investors and the public in general that the yuan was depreciating at a faster pace."