BEIJING, Dec 1: Japan’s Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga on Saturday added his voice to a chorus urging China to allow the yuan to appreciate more quickly against other currencies.

He was speaking at high-level economic talks involving six Japanese cabinet ministers and eight senior Chinese officials in Beijing.

Nukaga told the Chinese side it would be helpful to allow the yuan to rise “as quickly as possible,” he told reporters. The Chinese officials responded by saying that they would deal with the matter flexibly, he added.

In a separate bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Xuren, Nukaga said agreement was reached on working more closely together, and the two ministers decided to meet again in the spring in Japan.

EU officials and visiting French President Nicholas Sarkozy have issued China with sharp warnings this week about the weakness of its currency, which they say is stoking dangerous global imbalances and protectionism across Europe.

The yuan trades in a band against the dollar, allowing it to move up or down 0.5 per cent against the US currency.

—Reuters