The Chinese yuan may head north this week amid expectations that prices may rise in the fourth quarter, traders and analysts said.

The currency settled at 7.5047 against the US dollar on Friday - a gain of 9.36 percent - since the fixed exchange rate of 8.28 to the greenback was abandoned on July 21, 2005.

Consumer prices surged by a decade-high of 6.5 percent in August from a year earlier.

The National Bureau of Statistics will release the third-quarter figures on October 23.

(Shanghai Daily October 8, 2007)