The Federal Reserve (Fed) of the United States announced on Wednesday a half-point rise in interest rates with the aim of fighting against a inflation runaway
With this increase -which is double the one carried out in March-, the official interest rate of the largest economy in the world is now in a range between 0.75% and 1%.
This is the biggest rate hike in more than two decades, since the last time the central bank US announced an increase of half a point was in the year 2000.
In an official statement at the end of their two-day meeting, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system announced that it expects to carry out more rate hikes in the future.
In addition, the Fed announced that as of June 1 it will begin to reduce its public debt portfolio of the United States Government, made up mainly of Treasury bills and securities backed by mortgage loans.
Currently, the central bank accumulates a total of 9 trillion dollars in US debt.
In June, July and August, the Fed will divest $30 billion in Treasury bills and $17.5 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month.
Starting in September, these monthly figures will rise to $60 billion and $35 billion respectively, and the process will end when levels considered “slightly above” what the bank considers “ample reserves” are reached.
The main objective of central bank American right now is to mitigate the high rate of inflationwhich last March stood at 8.5%, the highest recorded since 1981.
Next Wednesday, May 11 -within a week- the data of inflation corresponding to April, which analysts expect to be equal to or even higher than that of March.
