Yi Gang: U.S., China reach 'consensus' on key issues in trade talks

March 10 (UPI) -- China and the United States reached consensus on many key issues in their latest round of trade talks, governor of the People's Bank of China Yi Gang said Sunday.

Yi said told a press conference during the annual National People's Congress that the two countries discussed how to respect and observe the "autonomy" of each other's monetary authorities, including committing to keeping the dollar and the Chinese yuan in line with market-decided exchange rate.

"The two sides discussed issues surrounding the yuan including the need to abide by previous commitments made by Group of 20 nations not to engage in competitive depreciation and to communicate closely on currency issues," Yi said.

Currency manipulation has become a topic in talks between the two countries seeking to end their ongoing trade war and China has previously said any deal to end the dispute should be "two way, fair and equal."

They also discussed whether each country should commit to disclose data in accordance with the statistics transparency standard of the International Monetary Fund.

Yi added that the People's Bank of China has "basically exited" daily intervention in the foreign exchange market and that China will never use the exchange rate to increase exports or to solve trade disputes, Bloomberg reported.

He also said China would abide by the existing intention to keep the yuan "basically stable" at "reasonable equilibrium."

Yi didn't clarify which areas the U.S. and China reached consensus on, but said the discussions on foreign exchange had been "very meaningful."