Şimşek meets with Yellen

SAO PAULO

Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ summit in Brazil.

“I met with Minister Mehmet Şimşek to discuss how Türkiye and the United States can work together to address crucial regional issues,” Yellen wrote on the social media platform X.

“I also stressed the enduring importance of our bilateral relationship,” Yellen added.

Şimşek and Central Bank Governor Fatih Karavan are in Brazil to attend the G-20 summit in Sao Paulo.

The meeting, which follows one by foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro last week, will lay the economic policy groundwork for the annual G20 leaders' summit, to be held in Rio in November later this year.

Yellen, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva and other top economic policymakers gather in Sao Paulo for the two-day meeting - though there will be some notable absences, including the British, Chinese, Indian and Russian finance ministers, organizers told AFP.

Brazil, which took over the rotating G20 presidency from India in December, wants to use the two-day meeting to pressure for progress on fighting poverty, alleviating low-income nations' crushing debt burdens, and giving developing countries more say at institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

"It is time to redefine globalization," Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad told his counterparts from the Group of 20 leading economies, opening their first meeting of the year in Sao Paulo.

"We need to create incentives to ensure international capital flows are no longer decided by immediate profit but by social and environmental principles," Haddad said.