Japanese minister urges PRC to make yuan more flexible

Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga urged Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren (謝旭人) to make the yuan more flexible versus foreign currencies.

"I told them that I'm expecting China to take some measures to help increase the flexibility of the yuan," Nukaga said at a news conference after a meeting with Xie in Tokyo yesterday.

PACE OF GAINS

The pace of gains in China's currency accelerated to 7 percent last year against the US dollar from 3 percent in 2006.

It touched 7.0512 on Thursday in Shanghai, the strongest level since the end of the decade-long US dollar link in July 2005.

DIALOGUE MECHANISM

This is the second time finance chiefs from the two nations have met under the so-called China-Japan finance minister dialogue mechanism established in June 2005.

The first meeting was held in March 2006 between then Chinese finance minister Jin Renqing (金人慶) and Japanese counterpart Sadakazu Tanigaki.