{"id":26915,"date":"2012-01-27T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/fx\/2012\/01\/27\/hkma-follows-fomc-in-keeping-rate-on-hold-at-0-50\/"},"modified":"2012-01-27T13:51:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T18:51:00","slug":"hkma-follows-fomc-in-keeping-rate-on-hold-at-0-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2012\/01\/27\/hkma-follows-fomc-in-keeping-rate-on-hold-at-0-50\/","title":{"rendered":"HKMA Follows FOMC in Keeping Rate on Hold at 0.50%"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><span>The&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.info.gov.hk\/hkma\/\">Hong Kong Monetary Authority<\/a>&nbsp;kept its base rate steady at 0.50% following the decision of the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/2012\/01\/fomc-holds-rate-at-0-025-announces.html\">US Federal Reserve<\/a>&nbsp;to leave the fed funds rate unchanged at 0-0.25% until late 2014. &nbsp;The HKMA said (according to <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/BT-CO-20120126-701488.html\">WSJ<\/a>) the Fed forecasts&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><span><span>&#8220;reflect the still-soft outlook of the U.S economy, which is weighed by a weak job market, a depressed housing market, the need for long-term fiscal consolidation as well as the lingering sovereign debt crisis in Europe.&#8221; Adding:&nbsp;&#8220;In such an uncertain environment&#8230; we would like to remind the public to be careful and avoid over-stretching themselves financially,&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div><a name='more'><\/a><\/div>\n<div>The HKMA also previously held its&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/2011\/12\/hkma-keeps-interest-rate-at-050.html\">base&nbsp;interest&nbsp;rate<\/a>&nbsp;unchanged&nbsp;at 0.50%, after the FOMC met in December last year. &nbsp;The Hong Kong Monetary Authority generally tends to follow the monetary policy decisions of the US Federal Reserve&#8217;s Federal Open Market Committee as the Hong Kong Dollar is fixed against the United States Dollar. <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/2011\/12\/hkma-keeps-interest-rate-at-050.html\" name=\"more\"><\/a><span>Hong Kong reported consumer price inflation of 5.7% in December, 5.8% in October and September, compared to 5.7% in August, 7.9% in July, 5.6% in June, 5.2% in May and 4.6% in April this year. &nbsp;Hong Kong&#8217;s economy expanded 0.1% in Q3 this year, (-0.4% in Q2, 2.8% in Q1), placing year on year GDP growth at 4.3% (5% in Q2, 7.5% in Q1). &nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>The Hong Kong dollar is fixed against the U.S. currency at an exchange rate of between HK$7.75 and HK$7.85 per dollar; the USDHKD exchange rate last traded at 7.755. &nbsp;The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fundterms.com\/2011\/01\/hang-seng_02.html\">Hang Seng<\/a> is down -13.5% over the past year, and last traded around 20,500.<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8290544642025682538-6511070484992119881?l=www.centralbanknews.info\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The&nbsp;Hong Kong Monetary Authority&nbsp;kept its base rate steady at 0.50% following the decision of the&nbsp;US Federal Reserve&nbsp;to leave the fed funds rate unchanged at 0-0.25% until late 2014. &nbsp;The HKMA said (according to WSJ) the Fed forecasts&nbsp;&#8220;reflect the still-soft outlook of the U.S economy, which is weighed by a weak job market, a depressed housing &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2012\/01\/27\/hkma-follows-fomc-in-keeping-rate-on-hold-at-0-50\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HKMA Follows FOMC in Keeping Rate on Hold at 0.50%&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}