The minutes of the January monetary policy meeting released by the Federal Reserve on the 16th show that due to the continued high inflation in the United States, the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates as soon as March this year. The minutes of the meeting showed that if inflation could not fall as expected, the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve "would be appropriate to cancel loose monetary policy faster than expected". In addition, most Fed officials hinted that according to the most likely economic outlook, the Fed's current round of interest rate hikes may exceed 2017-2018. This means that the Fed may raise interest rates continuously at the next monetary policy meetings in March, may and June. At a press conference held after the monetary policy meeting in January, Fed chairman Powell said that in view of the significant growth of the US job market and the inflation rate is much higher than the long-term inflation target of 2% set by the Fed, the US economy no longer needs "sustained high-level monetary policy support", The Fed will "steadily walk out of the very loose monetary policy implemented in response to the impact of the epidemic". Minutes of the meeting showed that Fed officials also discussed how to significantly reduce their balance sheet. The members of the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously agreed that the time and speed of the table reduction will be determined according to the two objectives of promoting full employment and price stability, and the table reduction process is expected to start after the interest rate increase. In recent months, US prices have soared, and the consumer price index and producer price index have both risen sharply, deepening the market's expectation that the Fed will raise interest rates faster. It is widely expected that the Federal Reserve will raise the target range of the federal funds rate to between 1.75% and 2% this year. The Federal Reserve held its first monetary policy meeting in 2022 from January 25 to 26, announced that it would maintain the target range of the federal funds rate between zero and 0.25%, and said it would be appropriate to raise the target range of the federal funds rate soon. At the same time, the Federal Reserve decided to continue to reduce the monthly net asset purchase rate and end the asset purchase plan in March this year. (Xinhua News Agency)