MADRID, 25 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The president of the Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed), Jerome Powell, has warned that, despite the fact that the inflation rate has moderated recently, "it is still too high", for which he has assured that the central bank The US is ready to raise interest rates if necessary.
"While inflation has come down from its peak, which is welcome, it's still too high," Powell said in his keynote address at the Kansas City Federal Reserve's annual meeting in Jackson Hole.
"We are prepared to further increase rates if appropriate and intend to keep policy tight until we are confident that inflation is sustainably declining towards our target," he added.
In this sense, the president of the Fed has highlighted the evolution in the months of June and July of the monthly core inflation readings, but has stressed that "two months of good data" are only the beginning of what will be needed to generate Confidence that inflation is coming down sustainably towards the target.
Thus, for Powell it is not yet possible to know how far these lower readings will continue or where core inflation will stabilize in the coming quarters.
In his view, the current uncertainty complicates the central bank's job of balancing risks and underscores the need for agile policymaking, as doing too little would entrench inflation that is too high, requiring aggressive monetary policy action. a high cost to employment, while doing too much could also cause unnecessary damage to the economy.
"We will proceed with caution when deciding whether to further tighten monetary policy or whether to keep it constant and wait for more data," Powell stressed, pledging to continue doing so "until the job is done."
"The process still has a long way to go, even with the most favorable recent results," he added.
The Fed's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the body that sets US monetary policy, is scheduled to meet again on September 19-20.
At its July meeting, the US central bank unanimously decided to approve an interest rate rise of 25 basis points, until it placed them within a target range of between 5.25% and 5.50%, their highest level. since January 2001.
