China’s renminbi is on track for its best monthly performance against the dollar in half a year, after policymakers deployed direct and indirect support measures to fend off downward pressure on the currency, traders and analysts said.

The renminbi rose about 1.5 per cent in July to Rmb7.1475 per dollar, putting a floor under the exchange rate after a three-month sell-off in which the Chinese currency tumbled more than 5 per cent on intensifying concerns over economic growth.

Traders said that both official limits on the exchange rate’s movement and indirect intervention from state banks buying up the currency had helped snap the renminbi’s protracted losing streak, after the Communist party’s Politburo voiced support for a “basically stable” exchange rate at an “appropriate level of equilibrium” in a statement on July 24.