(Reuters) – Meetings between U.S. Treasury and Chinese financial officials in Beijing this week concluded with both sides agreeing to continue to meet regularly, the Treasury Department said on Friday.
U.S. officials also indicated that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen looked forward to a return visit to China at an “appropriate time,” the department said in a statement.
The meeting of the Financial Working Group included discussions on financial stability and capital markets issues, international financial institutions, sustainable finance, cross-border payments and data and efforts to fight money laundering and financing of terrorism.
“U.S. officials also frankly raised areas of disagreement during the conversations,” the Treasury said, without identifying these points of contention.
The two sides also reviewed previous exchanges on climate stress testing and frameworks for resolving global systemically important banks in each country.
The Financial Working Group and a parallel Economic Working Group were established in September 2023 after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Beijing to re-establish economic communications with her Chinese counterparts.
The groups last met in San Francisco in November ahead of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, where Yellen also met with her Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng and agreed to “intensify communication.” He also invited her to return to China this year.
The members of the financial group, led on the U.S. side by Assistant Secretary for international finance Brent Neiman and Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang, also met with He in Beijing, the Treasury said.
The China delegation was led by the People’s Bank of China, with participants from other agencies.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and David Lawder; editing by Rami Ayyub and Chizu Nomiyama)
