Fed Chair Jerome Powell And Chinese Counterpart Yi Gang Meet For First One-On-One Talk Since 2020: Report

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and People's Bank of China, or PBoC, Governor Yi Gang reportedly met in Washington this week for their first one-on-one talk since 2020.

What Happened: Yi and Powell discussed the economic and financial situation in the two largest economies during their meeting on Tuesday, reported Bloomberg, citing a statement released by the PBoC on Friday.

The statement, however, did not provide more detail. The talk was held during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's Spring meetings, the report said.

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Prior Meetings: Before this, the last publicly known conversation between the two central bank chiefs took place on March 2, 2020, when the Fed chief spoke for 17 minutes with Yi over the phone. The call was made a day ahead of the Fed's emergency interest rate cut in an initial response to protect the U.S. economy against the spreading coronavirus, the report stated.

The PBoC governor's last in-person meeting with the Fed chief was in 2019 on the sidelines of IMF and World Bank meetings.

Economy: As economic data releases increasingly show a potential weakening of the economy, all eyes will be trained on what the Fed decides in its next policy meet. Minutes from the Fed's March policy meet showed members expected the recent banking crisis to tip the economy into a mild recession later this year.

JPMorgan Chief U.S. Economist Michael Feroli, earlier, stated that Powell doesn’t seem to believe in forecasts and may be looking for real indicators that the economy is slowing. “He has shown not a lot of faith in forecasts. I think he needs to see actual evidence that the economy is slowing before he really, confidently takes a pause here," he said.

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