US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke to reporters during a visit to a public health service in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia.
Stating that falling power prices worldwide and easing supply chain problems are a sign of progress in inflation, Yellen said that these “positive signs” encourage her.
“I think we continue to see progress in a strong labor market and inflation in the US,” Yellen said.
Yellen also said that commodity prices fell in late 2022 and she expects housing inflation, which contributed particularly strongly to price pressures in the second half of the year, to decline by mid-2023.
Various measures of inflation have given bold signals to the US economy in recent weeks, including declines in the consumer price index, which dropped to 6.5 percent during the year by December.