SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said Thursday the prospect of higher interest rates won't hurt economic growth.
"The business community accepts the fact that in a recovery, one of the normal developments is increased demand for capital ... I think they're just baking it into their plans as a normal part of what they'd expect in a recovery," Snow told business executives at a breakfast briefing in San Francisco.
"A rise in interest rates is not an inhibitor of the recovery, it's part and parcel of the recovery and what you'd expect to see," he added.
The Federal Reserve sets interest rates in the United States and Fed policymakers will meet at the end of this month to vote on whether or not to raise the rates. Most economists expect the Fed to raise the key federal funds target rate by at least 25 basis points from the current 1 percent in light of recent gains in the U.S. economy.
