By Frank Fuhrig

Washington (dpa) - The International Monetary Fund added China's renminbi on Monday to the currencies that the crisis lender uses as a measure of value, alongside the dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling.

The move by the IMF's executive board puts the Chinese economy into an exclusive club of countries with reserve currencies.

China, which has grown rapidly in recent decades to become the world's second-largest economy, has long sought to make the renminbi into a global reserve currency, including the IMF designation.

An IMF staff report in early November recommended that the renminbi be placed into the Washington-based IMF's so-called currency basket, a daily average of the market exchange rates of the now-five currencies, which is more stable than any of the individual major currencies alone.

The average is used as a measure of value for the IMF's "special drawing rights," which quantify how much reserve currency each of the 188 member countries can call on.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde endorsed the report's finding that the renminbi "meets the requirements to be a 'freely usable' currency," fulfils export criteria, is widely traded in major foreign exchange markets and should be included in the currency basket.