Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan offered no clues in a speech today on the central bank's current view on interest rates ahead of its policy meeting next month In a speech on productivity, he did not comment on the US economy or the the global economic recovery, offering no clues to the market about possible rate moves by the central bank at its meeting on 6 November.
In his statement, Greenspan said that the growth in US productivity that began in the latter part of the 1990s has not yet faltered as yet. "It is both remarkable and encouraging that, despite all that has transpired over the past couple of years, a significant step-up in the growth of productivity appears to have persisted," he said
Greenspan also to the conference, which was sponsored by the Department of Labour and the American Enterprise Institute, that 2002 will probably yield one of the largest gains in productivity of the past 30 years.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates 11 times last year, knocking 425 basis points off the federal funds rate. It has left the rate unchanged at 1.75pc for the past 10 months //www.fxcentre.com