BEIJING - The Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, rose to its highest level against the US dollar for eight months Thursday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System.

The central parity rate of the yuan was set at 6.2793 per dollar.

On China's foreign exchange spot market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 1 percent from the central parity rate each trading day.

The central parity rate of the yuan against the US dollar is based on a weighted average of prices before the opening of the market each business day.

The yuan's trading market had its ups and downs in 2012, as the first half of last year saw the currency's depreciation but it reversed the trend and made frequent gains by the daily limits after October.

China abandoned a decade-old peg to the US dollar by allowing its currency to fluctuate against a basket of currencies on July 21, 2005. In April last year, the central bank widened the yuan's daily trading band against the greenback to 1 percent from the previous 0.5 percent.

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