The US economy will not face a recession.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he does not see the US economy facing a recession or major economic turmoil.

A hard landing scenario is “not the most likely scenario, nor is it the most likely scenario,” Powell added at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington.

“I always felt there was a way to bring inflation down without hurting the labor market,” he said.

Powell added that the three inflation readings during the second quarter of this year showed that “further progress” had been made in returning the pace of price increases to the bank’s target range, in comments that suggest a shift to lowering interest rates may not be far off.

“In the second quarter we really made more progress” toward curbing inflation, he added.

“We have three better readings, and looking at the average, that’s a very good situation,” he said.

The consumer price index rose 2.1 percent in the second quarter on an annual basis, excluding volatile food and energy prices.

This index tends to be higher than the US Federal Reserve’s preferred personal consumption expenditures price index.

Personal consumption expenditures data for June will not be released until next week.

“What we’ve said is that we don’t think it would be appropriate to begin easing policy until we have greater confidence” that inflation is sustainably returning to 2 percent, Powell said.

“We are waiting for that,” he added. “I would say we didn’t gain any additional confidence in the first quarter, but the three readings in the second quarter, including last week’s reading, add somewhat to the confidence.”