Yuan to strengthen mildly in 2013

Lian Ping predicted the US dollar to strengthen in the long-term as United States' capability of walking out of the economic shadows can never be underestimated. That will restrain the yuan's appreciation against the US dollar.

To cope with the US dollar's possible gains in the future, analysts said the Chinese government should accelerate the yuan's market reform and push for its two-way fluctuations to help business companies avert risks.

In a move to accelerate market reform, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, widened the yuan's daily trading limit against the US dollar to 1 percent from 0.5 percent last April.

Zhang Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the move, to some extent, changed people's mind that the central bank manipulated the exchange rates. He expects the floating band will be widened further in the future.