Finance

Finance

Federal Reserve seeks new means to boost economy

17 March 2009 14:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. The Federal Reserve meets Tuesday to consider new tools to open up credit markets and tackle the worst crisis since the 1930s, AFP reported.
At a two-day policy meeting opening Tuesday, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is expected to leave unchanged its base lending rates at zero to 0.25 percent as it mulls further moves to tackle the credit crunch and economic slump.
With the traditional tool of interest rate policy now exhausted, the central bank is focused on extraordinary efforts to pump up credit to boost the economy.
It has already started buying up mortgage securities and corporate commercial paper, and is set to launch a new program to pump 200 billion dollars into consumer credit through the purchase of securities linked to auto, student and other types of loans.
In his first television interview since becoming Fed chairman in 2006, Bernanke predicted Sunday that America’s worst recession in decades would likely end this year before a recovery gathers steam next year.