THE Chinese yuan yesterday strengthened above the 6.13 level against the US dollar on the spot market for the first time in 19 years after the central bank set a record reference rate for the currency and Premier Li Keqiang reiterated the country was making progress in opening up its capital account.

The yuan closed at 6.1316 per dollar in Shanghai yesterday, 0.04 percent stronger than Thursday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

The yuan touched an intraday high of 6.1279, the strongest since the government unified the official and market rates at the end of 1993.

The People's Bank of China raised the central parity rate by 0.13 percent to 6.1867 per US dollar yesterday before the market opened.

It was the third time that the PBOC had raised the daily fixing to a record in a week, guiding the market rate up 0.17 percent from May 17.

The nation is steadily pushing forward market-oriented reforms on interest rates and capital-account convertibility, Premier Li said in a signed article in Neue Zuricher Zeitung, a German-language Swiss newspaper, on Thursday.