The U.S. Federal Reserve has raised its key interest rate by another quarter of a percentage point in its continuing effort to rein in inflation.

After a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) on Wednesday, the Fed said in a statement that it raised its benchmark short-term interest rate by 25 basis points.

The move, the tenth consecutive hike since March of last year, pushed the new target range to five to five-point-25 percent, the highest level in 16 years since 2007.

The Fed said that while job gains had been "robust" in recent months, and that the unemployment rate remained low, inflation remained high. 

Meanwhile, the gap between the Fed and the Bank of Korea’s benchmark rate has now widened to a record one-point-75 percentage points, raising concerns about possible capital outflows from the Korean market.