US Fed: Economic recovery too slow

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155517.html


The US Federal Reserve has announced that the country's economic recovery is too slow to reduce joblessness, so it will keep the massive spending plan intact to provide stimulus to the economy.

The Federal Reserve issued a statement on Tuesday that due to shallow improvement in US economic data it will stick to its commitment to pump another $600-billion of cash into the economy and keep interest rates close to zero indefinitely, AFP reported.

The central bank's policymakers said the recovery was too weak to reduce lofty unemployment, the main challenge to getting the world's largest economy back on track, and inflation trends were worryingly weak.

But signs that American consumers are buying again and the prospect that the US Congress will extend Bush-era tax cuts means the central bank may not have to use all of its monetary tools to keep the US economy afloat.

"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met in November confirms that the economic recovery is continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring down unemployment," the FOMC said in a statement at the last meeting of the panel in 2010.

The FOMC left the key federal funds rate target at rock bottom levels between zero and 0.25 percent, the figure which has not changed since December 2009 in an attempt to support recovery.

The policy was endorsed by all but one member of the FOMC.