Despite the sizable price spike in crude oil and other commodities, the longer-run inflation expectations remained stable in the United States, the U.S. Federal Reserve said on Tuesday.

Overall consumer prices in the nation rose somewhat faster in December and January than in earlier months, as consumer energy prices posted further increases and consumer food prices responded to the recent upturn in farm commodity prices, the central bank noted in minutes released on Tuesday of a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting held in March.

The price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) excluding food and energy, or the core PCE price index, ticked up slightly in January, boosted by an increase in prices of core goods after four months of declines, while the 12-month change in this core price index stayed near the very low levels seen in late 2010, according to the minutes.

"A few members remained uncertain about the benefits of the asset purchase program, but judged that making changes to the program at this time was not appropriate," according to the document.

Members of the FOMC, the central bank's interest rate policy making body, decided to continue expanding its holdings of 600 billion U.S. dollars longer-term Treasury securities as announced in November in order to promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that long-run inflation is at levels consistent with the committee's mandate.

The staff revised up its projection for consumer price inflation in the near term, largely due to the recent increases in the prices of energy and food. However, because of the projected persistence of slack in labor and product markets as well as the anticipated stability in long-term inflation expectations, the increase in inflation was expected to be mostly transitory if oil and other commodity prices did not rise significantly further, noted the minutes.

"The pace of economic activity appeared to have been a little slower around the turn of the year than the staff had anticipated at the time of the January FOMC meeting, and the near-term forecast for growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) was revised down modestly," said the Fed.

Economists believed that rising operating costs that have eaten into U.S. businesses' profit margins and worries triggered by a deteriorating government fiscal sustainability have dimmed prospects of a stronger recovery of the world's largest economy.

Meeting participants held that U.S. economic growth might strengthen over coming quarters while remaining moderate, adding that the nation's housing sector still remained depressed.

The FOMC members predicted that the U.S. household spending would continue to expand, the pace of expansion was uncertain.

The central bank believed that overall conditions in the U.S. labor markets had continued to improve gradually, while several meeting participants noted that the drop in unemployment was attributable more to people withdrawing from the labor force and to fewer layoffs than to increased hiring.

The Committee would maintain the target range for the federal funds between 0 and 0.25 percent and continued to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends and stable inflation expectations, might warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet