Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 countries stressed the importance of central bank independence while pledging to boost cooperation in a joint statement issued on Friday after a two-day meeting in South Africa.

An independent Federal Reserve in recent decades has increasingly served as an anchor for global markets, stepping in to steady the ship during the 2008-09 financial crisis, the Covid pandemic and other shocks of recent years.

The G20 finance ministers stressed Friday that central banks must remain independent, after months of escalating attacks by US President Donald Trump on Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell.

By Michael S. Derby NEW YORK (Reuters) -Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams declined on Wednesday to comment on President Donald Trump’s attacks on the central bank and what it might mean if the president were to somehow remove the Fed’s leader from office.

Powell sent a letter Thursday to Powell sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought in response to OMB director's letter last week criticizing the chairman's management of the $2.5 billion renovation, which is $700 million over budget, CNN reported.

President Donald Trump's appointees to a Washington project review board pushed the Federal Reserve five years ago to use more marble for a renovation project at its headquarters campus that the White House is now using as the basis for attacks on central bank Chair Jerome Powell,