(LEAD) U.S. Fed keeps key rate unchanged for 5th straight time, signals 3 rate cuts this year

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday held its benchmark lending rate steady for a fifth consecutive time and signaled that it could lower the rate three times this year in line with policymakers' previous projections. After the two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the central bank announced its decision to maintain the rate in the 5.25 to 5.50 percent range. FOMC members' latest median economic projections showed that the federal funds rate would be cut to 4.6 percent at the end of this year. The forecast signaled three quarter-percentage-point cuts this year. "Inflation is still too high. Ongoing progress in bringing it down is not assured, and the path forward is uncertain," Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a press briefing. "We are fully committed to returning inflation to our 2 percent goal." The Fed has frozen the rate since September following a July FOMC decision to raise the rate by a quarter percentage point to the current level. In March 2022, the Fed launched a rate-hiking campai gn to bring down inflation that hit a 40-year high in July of the same year. The Fed is expected to start its cycle of rate cuts when inflation is convincingly on a sustainable track toward its inflation target of 2 percent. Source: Yonhap News Agency