Ahead of the announcement, the Fed walked a balancing act between continuing to raise interest rates to reduce inflationary pressures and pressing the brakes to prevent further turbulence in the banking sector.
Fed Chief Jerome Powell thus chose the former option – to continue tightening fiscal policy and raise the policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to the range of 4.75-5.0 percent.
The announcement marks the Fed's ninth straight rate hike and was in line with most observers' expectations.
In February, inflation in the U.S. fell to 6 percent, from 6.4 percent in January. It is certainly a decline, but still well above the central bank's inflation target of 2 percent.
The text is updated.