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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the U.S. central bank, announced that he would raise the key interest rate by 0.5 percentage point next month.

The New York stock market plummeted at the news, which was a sign of a will to speed up the rate hike by a so-called big step, which is twice the size of the previous hike.



Correspondent Kim Jong-won from New York.



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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell attended the IMF General Assembly and announced that he would raise the US benchmark interest rate by 0.5 percentage points.



[Jerome Powell/Federal Reserve Chairman: My opinion is that it is appropriate to speed up the rate hike a little bit.

A 50bp (0.5%p) increase will be discussed at the regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).]



On the 3rd of next month, the regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee of the Fed, which decides on the US interest rate policy, is scheduled. It is expected that the rate hike will be decided by 0.5 percentage points, double the previous increase of 0.25 percentage points.



This suggests a so-called 'big step' to increase the extent of interest rate hikes, and it is very unusual for the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, to directly mention the extent and timing of interest rate hikes like this.



Chairman Powell stressed that price stabilization is the most urgent task for the economy.



[Jerome Powell / Chairman of the Federal Reserve System: Inflation stability is a very important issue.

If inflation is not stable, the economy will not function properly.]



The US Consumer Price Index surged 8.5% in March compared to the same period a year earlier, recording the highest price increase in over 40 years since 1981.



There are concerns that inflation is at a serious level.



New York stocks plunged after news of Chairman Powell's remarks came out.



The tech-focused Nasdaq fell more than 2%, while the Dow and S&P 500 fell more than 1%.