The U.S. Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, but signaled rates could still go higher if inflation proves sticky.

After a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) on Wednesday, the Fed said in a statement that it kept the target range for its benchmark rate at five to five-point-25 percent, saying it wanted time to assess the impact of rate hikes so far.

The central bank lifted its key rate ten straight times since March of last year from near zero to five-point-25 percent, the highest level in 16 years since 2007.

After the policy meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that inflationary pressure remains high and almost all FOMC members believed that additional hikes this year will be appropriate to lower inflation to two percent.

The remarks appear to indicate that the central bank is likely to opt for additional hikes rather than freezing the key rate.

Wednesday's move maintains the one-point-75 percentage point gap between the Fed’s rate and that of the Bank of Korea, which kept its key rate frozen at three-point-five percent last month for the third straight time.