U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to address his country's huge trade imbalance with the United States through a "significant revaluation" of China's currency.

"I know China is committed to moving to a free floating currency eventually. But China's currency policy has been causing major distortions in the world economy for too many years already, and is continuing to do so now," Reid said in a December 9 letter released on Friday.

"In the mean time, I hope you would consider a significant revaluation to bring the value of the RMB in line with economic fundamentals, and after that, to return to a more robust version of the 'managed float' that your government previously maintained," Reid said.