<Anchor> It
is a friendly economy time.
Today (2nd), I will be with reporter Kwon Ae-ri.
The US Federal Reserve made an announcement last night after deciding how much to raise the base rate.
A 0.25 percentage point increase, it seems to have decreased a bit more than last year.
How will it affect us?
<Reporter>
Since interest rates in the United States have a great influence on the flow of money and interest rates in the world and in Korea, we have no choice but to keep our eyes peeled for each new announcement.
In a nutshell, it is a level that does not deviate from market expectations.
However, the fight between the US central bank and the market is still fierce, so it can be said that you can't put your mind at ease.
Unlike ours, the benchmark interest rate in the US has a certain range.
With this announcement, it rose by 0.25 percentage points, bringing the bottom to 4.5% and the top to 4.75%.
It's a high interest rate that I've never seen in 15 years since 2007.
The Bank of Korea raised our base rate to 3.5% on the 13th of last month, and this again widened the gap between our base rate and the US base rate by 1.25 percentage points.
Still, compared to last year, when the US raised interest rates at a tremendous pace, the rate of rise has been controlled a lot.
We are back at a pace we are accustomed to.
Since June of last year, the US has raised its benchmark interest rate four times in a row by 0.75 percentage points in a row in the so-called giant's stride, and then began to adjust the pace in December.
And this time, I raised only one step, 0.25 percentage points, which is commonly thought of.
<Anchor>
Is that why?
<Reporter>
Yes, especially the S&P500 and NASDAQ rose not so small.
Today's interest rate hike in the US was as expected by the market overall.
The important thing was how strongly the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Jerome Powell, a familiar face to the people of our country, would give a scare, and the contents of the press conference after the announcement of the Fed's statement and interest rates did not deviate much from expectations.
Rather, it seems that even the expectation of 'I don't speak as strongly as I thought' was created.
Chairman Powell said, "We are just beginning to see some relief in inflation."
At the end of last year, the Fed once predicted that it could raise the benchmark interest rate by about 0.5 percentage point more than it is now and reach about 5.25%.
This is the atmosphere that has prevailed in the market since the end of last year, so interest rates will rise a little more to the early 5% range in the future, but the cycle of this increase will not be long.
You just have to be patient a little longer, and maybe the cuts will start within this year.
In the United States, consumer prices and labor costs have definitely slowed down.
The Fed is talking carefully, but the market is reacting to the extent of 'for the time being'.
<Anchor>
So.
He's always been intimidating when you look at Chairman Jerome Powell, but today I feel like he's softened up a bit.
(I'm still giving.) I'm still giving scares, of course.
Perhaps the rise in US interest rates clearly affects our interest rates.
How do you think it will affect our interest rates?
<Reporter>
Yes.
That's what's important.
First of all, as I mentioned earlier today, the difference between the US and our benchmark interest rates has widened further.
Usually, we express this situation as an inverted Korea-US base rate because we can be relieved when our interest rate is higher than that of the US.
In this state, even if the US raises the base rate just once more in the future, the Korea-US base rate will reverse like this so far, widening it to 1.5 percentage points, the largest ever seen.
I haven't seen it since 2000, 23 years ago.
But now our country is economically much bigger than it was 23 years ago.
If we judge that the inverted interest rate with the US is unlikely to widen too much in the future, we will be able to worry more about our internal concerns about which side we should focus more on between the downturn we are worried about this year and the price that is not easily falling. .
The opinions that the Bank of Korea's Monetary Policy Committee members shared while raising interest rates last month were made public the day before yesterday.
At that time, there were already two minority opinions who were worried that "Let's stop raising it, the economy may contract excessively."
That is, not everyone was in favor of the rate hike.
Our base rate hike may end last month, or even if it is raised further in the future, there is only one left, and the opinion that up to 3.75% is the end is now prevailing.
The mood after today's US interest rate hike is not enough to overturn these expectations.
In the future, the current high interest rate will continue for a while, but you may think that the peak is not far away.