Investing.com - The British Pound steadied on Friday in Asia after the U.K. and the European Commission reportedly agreed on a draft political declaration that pledges an “ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership.”
“While it cannot amount to the rights or obligations of membership, the parties are agreed that the future relationship should be approached with high ambition with regard to its scope and depth, and recognise that this might evolve over time”, the Financial Times reported, citing a leaked document on future relations that is due to be approved at a summit on Sunday.
“Above all, it should be a relationship that will work in the interests of citizens of the Union and the United Kingdom, now and in the future.”
On Thursday, the British pound jumped more than 1% following the news. The GBP/USD pair last traded at 1.2881 by 11:56 PM ET (04:56 GMT), up 0.02%.
Meanwhile, The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies slipped 0.3% to 96.325.
"The Fed is most likely to hike rates in December. I don't see a shift in forward guidance at next month's meeting as that would imply that a significant deterioration in economic activity is already taking place," said David de Garis, director economics and markets at NAB.
Elsewhere, the USD/CNY pair traded 0.1% higher to 6.9406 after The People's Bank of China (PBoC) set the USD/CNY exchange rate for today at 6.9306, compared to yesterday's offered rate of 6.9391.
The USD/JPY pair was little changed at 112.91. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Thursday that Japan is nowhere near an exit from the ultra-loose monetary policy.
“Japan’s economy is clearly improving but it’s taking some time to achieve 2 % inflation,” Kuroda said.
“It’s a somewhat complicated situation ... so we need to carefully weigh the merits and costs of our policy.”