MNI TRANSCRIPT: Powell: US ECONOMY TO RETURN TO SOLID GROWTH

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following is the portion of a transcript from

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference after the FOMC meeting

Wednesday:

     Q: What changed between last week when many of the colleagues seems to

indicate it was still too soon to tell how this might influence the outlook,

what changed between last week and today? How much confidence do you have that

there will be a quick and relatively complete recovery of economic activity

after the peak of this virus has passed? What changed?

     A: Of course, we have been carefully monitoring the situation since it

first became known and waiting to see how it would evolve. We have come to the

view now that it is time for us to act in support of the economy, and once you

reach that decision, we decided to go ahead. What changed really was I would say

over the course of the last couple weeks, we have seen a broader spread of the

virus, we have seen it begin to spread a bit here in the United States, but for

us what matters of course is not the epidemiology but the risk to the economy.

We saw a risk to the outlook for the economy and chose to act. In terms of my

confidence that we will return to, what was your question?

     Q: How do you expect this to, the economy to recover from this, do you see

it as a persistent decline in activity or something that will be relatively

temporary and short-lived?

     A: I don't think anybody knows how long it will be. The U.S. economy is

strong, and we will get to the other side of this. I fully expect that it will

return to solid growth and solid labor market as well.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202 371 2121; email: ryan.hauser@marketnews.com

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