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Thursday 30 Apr 2015 - 12:29 Makkah mean time-11-7-1436
Janet Yellen, the chair of the Federal Reserve Board, faces a decision about whether to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade (Image from AP)
Washington, (IINA) - “Transitory factors” are to be blamed for the recent slowdown on the US economy, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.
In a statement released after the latest two-day meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC), the central bank brushed off recent bad news and left open the possibility of raising interest rates, a hike that would be the first in almost a decade, The Guardian reported.
The Fed meeting ended as the Commerce Department announced that US gross domestic product (GDP) had slowed to a crawl in the first quarter. After growing at an annual rate of 2.2% in the last three months of 2014 it slowed to just 0.2% in the first three months of 2015.
The extreme winter weather, strong dollar and collapsing oil prices that have stalled the US’s energy boom contributed to the slowdown. “Economic growth slowed during the winter months, in part reflecting transitory factors,” the Fed said. While growth and employment had slowed officials said they expected a return to a modest pace of growth and that the job market could continue to improve, “with appropriate policy accommodation”.
SM/IINA
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