A senior Chinese official has urged the United States to take action to stop the slide of the dollar and restore equilibrium to global currency markets, China Radio International reported Saturday.

Wang Xiaolong from Chinese foreign ministry made the comments before a China-US summit between China's President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush on Saturday, held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Washington maintains the yuan is undervalued and gives China an unfair trade advantage.

China insists that it is willing to gradually loosen the peg in the short term, but indicates it will not totally abandon it.

Last month China raised interest rates for the first time in nine years, which is widely seen as an effort to assist currency negotiation with the US.

Meanwhile, the dollar tumbled to the lowest level against the yen for over four years on Friday as markets bet against central bank intervention to arrest the American currency's decline.

The dollar fell to as low as 102.92 yen in late European trading, the lowest level since April 2000.

Meanwhile the euro scaled a peak of 1.3067 dollars, flirting with a record high 1.3074 dollars seen on Thursday.