The Chinese yuan climbed 219 basis points to break the 7.32 and 7.31 mark Thursday, with the central parity rate at record 7.3079 to the US dollar, according to the Chinese Foreign Exchange Trading System.

It is the biggest rise of the Chinese currency since China ended yuan's peg to the greenback on July 21, 2005. The accumulative appreciation since then has exceeded 10 percent.

The Chinese currency advanced more than 6.4 percent versus the dollar this year, from 7.8087 yuan to one US dollar posted on the last trading day of 2006.

The central parity rate of yuan stood at 10.5800 to one euro.

The People's Bank of China might loose the floating band of the exchange rate of RMB, making it more flexible, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

(Chinadaily.com.cn December 27, 2007)