The Chinese Renminbi (RMB) again climbed to a new high against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday to reach a central parity rate of 7.7496 yuan to the dollar.

The RMB gained 99 basic points from Tuesday's rate of 7.7595 - the 12th time it has set a new record since the beginning of the new year, climbing 591 basic points in the process.

The yuan has appreciated around 4.5 percent since it was revalued on July 21, 2005.

There is widespread speculation that the exchange rate of the RMB will be on the agenda at the G7 meeting in Germany at the weekend and Ye Yaoting, an analyst with the Bank of Communications, said this had contributed to the appreciation of the yuan.

Xiang Junbo, vice governor of the People's Bank of China, said at a national conference on bank loans and financial markets earlier in the week that China would steadily improve the flexibility of the RMB exchange rate this year.

Experts believe further appreciation will help China reduce its trade surplus, which stood at 177.47 billion U.S. dollars in 2006, up 74 percent on the previous year.

"It would be ideal to raise the annual appreciation rate of the yuan to five percent from the current level of three percent. Only then can we cut the trade surplus effectively," Song Guoqing, a professor at Peking University's China Center for Economic Research, said Wednesday.

However, Lin Yifu, Song's superior and director of the center, previously said on Sunday that the 0.6 percent appreciation rate in January alone was too rapid.

Source: Xinhua