Chinese central bank hints at halt to yuan's rise

By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- China's central bank dropped language calling for a more flexible foreign exchange rate from its regular policy statement issued Friday, suggesting it may slow or halt the yuan's rise against the U.S. dollar. The U.S. and other Western nations have called on China to allow its currency -- also known as the renminbi, or RMB for short -- to rise, saying the unit is undervalued and keeping Chinese exports to the rest of the world unfairly cheap. The People's Bank of China has responded by allowing the yuan to rise, with the dollar first breaking below the eight-yuan mark in May 2006 and below the seven-yuan level in April of this year. The greenback currently trades at about 6.87 yuan. In their first-quarter statement, released in April, the Chinese central bank's... [read full story]