WASHINGTON, March 29: China’s yuan currency has increasingly appreciated in the past two years and that pace “should continue,” a top US official said Friday.

Alan Holmer, special envoy for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue between the United States and China, said the yuan, or renminbi, had gained “a little over 18 per cent” since July 2005.

The accelerating rate of appreciation is significant and welcome and we believe it should continue, he told a news conference on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s trip next week to China.

The politically charged issue of the yuan’s value against the dollar will be among the issues Paulson is expected to raise at his meetings with Chinese government officials in Beijing next Wednesday and Thursday, he said.

President George W. Bush’s administration has stressed the need for economic dialogue on the sensitive issue and fought against US lawmakers’ moves to punish China for allegedly keeping its yuan undervalued to support its ballooning trade surplus with the US.—AFP