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US Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (KUNA) -- The US Federal Reserve kept on Wednesday interest rates unchanged at zero to 0.25 percent.
The Federal Reserve affirmed, "the COVID-19 pandemic is causing tremendous human and economic hardship across the United States and around the world".
It affirmed it is "committed to using its full range of tools to support the US economy in this challenging time, thereby promoting its maximum employment and price stability goals".
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement stressed "the ongoing public health crisis continues to weigh on economic activity, employment, and inflation, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook".
"The Committee decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at zero to 0.25 percent and expects it will be appropriate to maintain this target range until labor market conditions have reached levels consistent with the Committee's assessments of maximum employment and inflation has risen to two percent and is on track to moderately exceed two percent for some time," it noted.
It added that the Federal Reserve "will continue to increase its holdings of Treasury securities by at least USD 80 billion per month and of agency mortgage backed securities by at least USD 40 billion per month until substantial further progress has been made toward the Committee's maximum employment and price stability goals".
"In assessing the appropriate stance of monetary policy, the Committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook," it affirmed.
It indicated that the Committee's assessments "will take into account a wide range of information, including readings on public health, labor market conditions, inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and financial and international developments".
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said during a new conference "sufficiently widespread vaccinations would enable us to put the pandemic behind us".
"There's nothing more important to the economy now than people getting vaccinated," he affirmed. (end) si.mb