(Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday the United States was monitoring developments in Britain after the government unveiled a fiscal programme that sent the pound to a record low against the dollar, the Financial Times reported.
The financial turmoil of recent days appeared to be confined to Britain and was not spreading to the global economy, Yellen told reporters at the end of her visit in North Carolina. She declined to comment on Britain’s new budget, the newspaper said.
The U.S Treasury did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Yellen’s comments came as the IMF openly criticized Britain’s new economic strategy on Tuesday, following the free fall in the sterling and gilt market that forced the Bank of England to promise a “significant” response to stabilise the economy.
Yellen said financial markets were “still functioning well,” adding that they “haven’t seen liquidity problems develop in markets”, the report added.
Yellen said that both the United States and Britain had “significant inflation problems and central banks are focused on wanting to bring inflation down.”
(Reporting by Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Additional Reporting by Gokul Pisharody in Bengaluru; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
