US economy on track to grow by 2.5% in 2016, Fed's Evans says
A top US rate-setter reiterated a moderately upbeat view on that country's economy, highlighting a recent increase in the so-called labour force participation rate.
Speaking at the City Week conference in London, the president of the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago, Charles Evans, emphasised strength in the labour market as the key element in his view of the American economy.
"The most important fundamental is the improvement of labor prospects. The US labor market has been strong for quite some time," he said.
America's economy was on course to grow 2.5% in 2016, Evans said.
"More recently, labor-force participation has improved noticeably," he added.
Nonetheless, Evans noted that were also some key weak spots in the current outlook, including the impact that lower commodity prices might have on firms' levels of capital expenditure and the drag from the externally-facing sectors of the economy.