Addressing a press conference, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he and his colleagues believe that the central bank "should be patient in assessing the need for any change in the stance of policy."

"Patient means that we see no need to rush to judgment," he said. "It may be some time before the outlook for jobs and inflation calls clearly for a change policy."

Rate projections released after the policy meeting showed that 11 of the 17 officials who participated in setting interest-rate policy didn't predict any rate hikes whatsoever this year, while the rest of the six participants foresaw between one and two increases. In December, the median projection for the number of rate hikes this year was two.

Powell said the individual FOMC participants' views of the U.S. economy "point to a modest slowdown with overall conditions remaining favorable" this year.

The FOMC members "now see 2019 growth at roughly 2 percent, with the unemployment rate remaining below 4 percent," and core inflation rate, which omits the volatile food and energy prices, remains close to 2 percent, he added.

In a separate statement, the Fed said it intends to conclude the reduction of its aggregate securities holdings at the end of September. The process, known as Balance Sheet Normalization, started in October 2017.

The central bank intends to slow the reduction of its holdings of Treasury securities by reducing the cap on monthly redemptions from the current level of 30 billion U.S. dollars to 15 billion U.S. dollars beginning in May, according to the statement.

The Fed's asset portfolio, as a consequence of the quantitative easing policy following the 2008 financial crisis, amounted to about 4.5 trillion dollars when the central bank began to gradually reduce it two years ago.

Powell said the balance sheet will be of a size of approximately 17 percent of gross domestic production around the end of this year, down from 25 percent of GDP at the end of 2014. In dollar terms, Powell added, "it looks like it'll be a bit above 3.5 trillion."

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