The U.S. Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged for the third consecutive time on Wednesday as was highly expected in the market.

Following this year’s last meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC), the Fed said in a statement that it decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at five-point-25 to five-point-five percent.

In an FOMC statement, the central bank assessed that economic growth “has slowed from its strong pace in the third quarter, while “job gains have moderated since earlier in the year but remain strong, and the unemployment rate has remained low.” It also said “inflation has eased over the past year but remains elevated.”

Also on Wednesday, the Fed’s quarterly economic outlook showed that its officials project the benchmark rate to stand at four-point-six percent by the end of 2024, zero-point-75 percentage points lower than the current rate.

The projection is interpreted to suggest that the bank will make three quarter-point cuts to the benchmark interest rate next year.

Wednesday's move maintains the two-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.