It was the fourth time that the yuan has hit new high against the dollar within six consecutive trading days.

    The yuan climbed 28 basis points from previous trading at 7.472yuan to one dollar, rising a total 3,395 basis points from 7.8087 yuan on the last trading day of 2006.

    This was the 66th new high the yuan has hit since the beginning of this year, up more than four percent accumulatively.

    The accumulative appreciation since July 21, 2005, when China discontinued yuan's peg to the greenback, has exceeded 8.3 percent.

    At a conference of the People's Bank of China held earlier last week, the central bank said it would strengthen efforts in financial control and improve the valuation mechanism of the RMB exchange rate.

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

    On Wednesday, the yuan lost 311 basis points from the previous trading to reach a central parity rate of 10.7829 yuan against one euro.

    Meanwhile, it reported considerable gains against the Japanese yen and the British Pound to stand at 6.5094 yuan against 100 Japanese yen and 15.4534 yuan against one British Pound.

    The yuan broke the 7.6 mark against the U.S. dollar on July 3 and smashed the 7.5 mark on Oct. 24, then the 7.49 mark on Oct. 25.