The U.S. Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates at a 23-year high for the fifth straight meeting and signaled it still expects to make three rate cuts this year.
The Fed's decision to keep its key interest rate on loans between 5.25 percent and 5.50 percent allows policymakers to "carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks," the central bank said in a statement.
The Fed has successfully lowered inflation sharply from multi-year highs in 2022 to its long-term target of 2 percent.
But since the start of this year, the United States has seen a slight rise in the rate of inflation - renewing concerns that interest rates will have to stay high for longer to rein in prices.
Policymakers also updated their economic forecasts, sharply raising the forecast for US growth this year to 2.1% from 1.4% in December.
Policymakers left the forecast for headline inflation unchanged, but slightly raised the forecast for annual "core" inflation - excluding energy and food prices - to 2.6%.
Members of the Federal Open Market Operations Committee, which sets interest rates, also left the median forecast for interest rates at the end of 2024 at an average of between 4.50 and 4.75.
This means that they still expect a reduction of 0.75 percentage points by the end of the year, which is likely to translate into three reductions of 0.25 percentage points each. / BGNES
