Shanghai: China weakened the value of its yuan currency by 0.51 percent to 6.5646 against the US dollar on Thursday, figures from the China Foreign Exchange Trade System showed.
It was the biggest drop since August, Bloomberg News reported, when Beijing guided the unit down by nearly five percent in a week in a surprise devaluation.
It was the eighth consecutive trading session the central People's Bank of China (PBoC) has lowered the rate, reviving concerns over the currency of the world's second-largest economy and biggest trader in goods.
China limits the yuan to rising or falling two percent on either side of the reference rate, set by the central bank.
According to reports, the PBoC intervened in the domestic market through state-owned banks earlier this week to prop up the currency, which has come under pressure from capital outflows.
The moves come amid concerns over China's flagging economy, which is expected to have grown in 2015 at its slowest pace in a quarter of a century. Official data on fourth-quarter and annual growth is due to be released later in January.
A lower currency should make Chinese exports more competitive on world markets, but at the cost of its imports becoming more expensive in yuan terms.
Authorities were allowing the yuan to "move more flexibly", Societe Generale's China economist Claire Huang told AFP.
"The market expectation now is for the yuan to depreciate due to the economic slowdown in the world's second-largest economy," she said.
Beijing has pledged to make the value of the yuan more flexible and market-oriented, and the International Monetary Fund has announced the unit will join its elite reserve currency basket.
AFP
