Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell said at a news conference after the interest rate resolution on Wednesday that policy will continue to provide strong support for the economy. Inflation is likely to remain high in the coming months before easing.

Powell said that economic indicators continue to strengthen, corporate investment is growing steadily, but the outlook is still risky. The pace of improvement in the labour market is uneven and the economic recovery is incomplete, but the factors affecting job growth should weaken in the coming months, he said.

On inflation, Powell said that the increase in inflation partly reflects the base effect. Short-term supply constraints limit the activities of some industries, the bottleneck effect of upward pressure on inflation is greater than expected, and inflation is likely to be higher and longer-lasting than we expected.

The Fed sharply raised its inflation expectations for this year on Wednesday and advanced the time frame for its next rate hike, but did not say when to start cutting back on its aggressive bond-buying program.

On Thursday, June 17, Beijing time, the Federal Open Market Committee ((FOMC)) announced the latest interest rate decision, leaving the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0% rel 0.25%, raising the interest rate on excess reserves ((IOER)) from 0.1% to 0.15%, and the overnight reverse repo rate from 0.00% to 0.05%.

The Fed said it would continue to increase its holdings of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities by at least $80 billion a month until substantial progress is made in the committee's goals of full employment and price stability.