The value of China's currency, the yuan or RMB, refreshed its record high for a second time in a week on Thursday against the US dollar, with the central parity rate of the yuan at 7.5169 yuan to US$1.

It gained 94 basis points from Wednesday's reference rate of 7.5263 to the greenback, according to the Chinese Foreign Exchange Trading System.

It's the 59th time since the beginning of this year that RMB hit a new high against the US dollar. The previous record came on Monday, when the currency stood at 7.5252 yuan to the dollar.

The yuan has gained 242 basis points in four days this week, which is alreday higher than the accumulative rise registered for the whole month in August.

Analysts said the recent acceleration of yuan's revaluation was within the expectation of the market, as the US dollars continued to go weak.

The People's Bank of China, or the central bank, on May 21 further widened the floating band of yuan against US dollar for daily spot trading on the inter-bank market from 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent.

The Chinese currency has climbed 2,918 basis points from 7.8087 yuan to US$1 posted on the last trading day of 2006.

The accumulative appreciation since yuan's revaluation in 2005 reached 7.89 percent.

On Thursday, the yuan also gained ground against the British pound, the Hong Kong dollar and the Japanese yen, but lost 325 basis points from the previous trading day to reach a central parity rate of 1044.21 yuan against 100 euros.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2007)