China's currency, the yuan or RMB, hit a new high on Monday against the US dollar as the central parity rate of the yuan reached 7.5252 yuan to one US dollar.

It gained 159 basis points from Friday's reference rate of 7.5411 to the greenback, according to the Chinese Foreign Exchange Trading System.

It's the 58th time since the beginning of this year that RMB reached a new high against the US dollar. The previous record came last Thursday, when the currency stood at 7.5410 to the dollar.

It is a rare speedup since China discontinued yuan's peg to the US dollar on July 21, 2005.

Analysts said Monday's acceleration of yuan's revaluation was in line with the weak performance of the US dollar, which fell 1 percent and 2.1 percent against the euro and the Japanese yen, respectively, during the last week.

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 2,835 basis points from 7.8087 yuan to one US dollar posted on the last trading day of 2006.

The accumulative appreciation since yuan's revaluation in 2005 has exceeded 7.5 percent.

On Monday, the yuan gained 111 basis points against the Hong Kong dollar, but was weaker against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen compared with the previous trading day.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10 2007)