WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Jerome Powell, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said on Friday the need for the central bank to raise interest rates further was not obvious, as the impact of previous hikes and the tightening of credit conditions remains uncertain.

Speaking at a Fed conference in Washington, Jerome Powell reaffirmed that the institution would make its decisions “meeting by meeting” but he also stressed that after a year of rapid rate hikes, it “can enable the data and changing outlook to be examined in order to make conservative assessments”.

“We face uncertainties regarding the delayed effects of our monetary tightening and the extent of the credit crunch after the recent banking strains,” he said.

“Today, therefore, our guidance is limited to identifying the factors we will monitor to assess the extent to which further monetary policy tightening might be appropriate to bring inflation back to 2%.”

Jerome Powell added that no decision had been made ahead of the June 13-14 meeting.

(Howard Schneider, Laetitia Volga, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)

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