(Reuters) – Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic said on Tuesday the U.S. central bank did not need to raise interest rates further and that there was no recession future.

“I don’t think we need to raise rates further” to bring inflation too high to the Fed’s 2% target, he told the American Bankers Association (ABA), under applause from the audience.

According to Bostic, Federal Reserve (Fed) policy is tight enough, and “much” of the impact of rate hikes so far is clearly still to come, but the economy can “absorb” some of that. the effect of tightening and slow down without falling into recession.

“We may have to raise the Fed’s key rate, but that’s not my outlook at the moment, and that’s not what I expect,” he said.

Bostic, one of the most dovish members of the U.S. central bank, advocated an end to interest rate hikes well ahead of many of his colleagues who, until last month, were mostly arguing for higher costs borrowing by an additional quarter of a percentage point before the end of the year.

Some Fed policymakers appear to have softened that view in recent days, in light of rising Treasury yields.

(Reporting Ann Saphir; Diana Mandiá, editing by Kate Entringer)

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