WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a faster tapering of the central bank's asset purchase program beginning in January amid the rising inflation.
"Supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy have continued to contribute to elevated levels of inflation," the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed's policy-making committee, said in a statement after a two-day policy meeting.
"In light of inflation developments and the further improvement in the labor market," the committee decided to reduce the monthly pace of its net asset purchases by 20 billion U.S. dollars for Treasury securities and 10 billion dollars for agency mortgage-backed securities, starting with the mid-January purchase schedule.
"The Committee judges that similar reductions in the pace of net asset purchases will likely be appropriate each month, but it is prepared to adjust the pace of purchases if warranted by changes in the economic outlook," the statement said.
The Fed in early November agreed to reduce its monthly asset purchase program of 120 billion dollars by 15 billion dollars. The announcement on Wednesday put the central bank on track to end asset purchases by March, earlier than initially expected of June.
Meanwhile, the Fed decided to keep the federal funds rate unchanged at the record-low level of near zero as widely expected. Enditem
