<Anchor>
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the US central bank, announced that he would raise the key interest rate by 0.5 percentage point next month.
The New York stock market plummeted on the news, which was a sign of its will to speed up the rate hike by a so-called 'big step' that is twice the width of the previous hike.
Correspondent Kim Jong-won from New York.
<Reporter>
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 point.
[Jerome Powell/Federal Reserve Chairman: My opinion is that it is appropriate to speed up the rate hike a little bit.
The 50bp (0.5%p) increase will be discussed at the regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).]
Next month, the regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve, which decides on US interest rate policy, is scheduled for this meeting. A 0.5 percentage point increase in interest rates, double the previous increase of 0.25 percentage points, is expected to be decided.
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 inflation in 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%.