China's currency basket is heavily weighted to the dollar, euro, yen and South Korea's won, China central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said. Zhou released the details of the basket during a speech at the opening of the central bank's second Shanghai office, saying that currencies were chosen for inclusion on the basket based on their share of China's foreign trade, foreign debt and foreign direct investment. He said in his speech that sterling, the Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Russian rouble and Thai baht also have important roles in setting the yuan's value. Zhou did not give details of the weightings of individual currencies. The content and weightings of the basket have remained a closely guarded secret since China last month freed the yuan from an 11-year-old peg to the US dollar. Movements in the Chinese unit's value are now guided by reference to a currency basket. Zhou said that China's new currency regime will "more comprehensively reflect changes in the yuan's value against major currencies, better handle impacts from an unstable US exchange rate, reduce fluctuations in the yuan exchange rate, and maintain stability of China's foreign trade environment and sustained healthy relatively fast development of the economy."