RBNZ’s Breman Defends Support for Powell Over Fed Independence

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Anna Breman defended her decision to back Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, after the move drew a rebuke from the South Pacific nation’s foreign minister for straying into US politics.

“I made the decision that I wanted to sign it on behalf of the Reserve Bank,” Breman said in an interview on Friday in Wellington. “The reasons why I thought that was reasonable was because we are an independent central bank. This statement was clearly supporting central bank independence.”