Chinese yuan strengthens in January: index

BEIJING - China's yuan strengthened more than 1 percent against a basket of currencies in the first month of 2018, according to a China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) index.

The CFETS RMB Index, which measures the yuan's strength relative to a basket of currencies, came in at 95.82 at the end of January, a 1.02 percent increase from a month ago, CFETS said.

The index compares the yuan to the value of 24 currencies, including the US dollar, euro and Japanese yen, which was expanded from a basket of 13 currencies in 2016.

In January, an index that measures the yuan against the Bank for International Settlements currency basket went up 0.85 percent to 96.75, while against the Special Drawing Rights basket it strengthened 0.99 percent to 96.94, according to CFETS.

The first month of 2018 saw the yuan's central parity rate gain more than 3 percent against the US dollar, over half of the 5.81 percent strengthened for the whole 2017.

The currency's robust performance was the result of a weaker dollar, sound economic fundamentals, improved regulation on capital flows, a relatively tightened monetary environment and increased global use of the currency, said analysts.