Federal Reserve Rates Boost End to Global Policy Mitigation

The Fed's return to higher interest rates could support the central banks of Japan and Europe that were under pressure and signal the completion of a long cycle of monetary stimulus across Asia, as evidenced by the reaction of world regulators, from Beijing to Ankara and London, to a change in US policy.
The widely expected small increase in the Fed rate on Wednesday was only the third since the global financial crisis. However, this happened earlier than investors had predicted only a few weeks ago, and paved the way for two more increases this year amid the strengthening of the economy.
China, the world's second largest economy, on Thursday reacted with an increase in key rates to combat the weakening of the national currency. The same reason forced to tighten the policy of the central banks of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain within one and a half hours after the announcement of the Fed.
As for the leading economies, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank continue to focus on aggressively combating low inflation and growth. And while both regulators are still far from raising rates or turning off asset purchases - which was made clear by the head of the Bank of Japan Haruhiko Kuroda, when the ECB left the policy unchanged on Thursday - both recently became more optimistic, indicating that their hour will soon come.