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Fed's Evans says 'perfectly fine' with removing patient vow


    (Reuters) - One the Federal Reserve's top advocates for restraint in raising U.S. interest rates on Friday said he was comfortable with the decision earlier this week to remove a vow to be patient on rate hikes from the central bank's formal policy statement.

    Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who unlike most of his colleagues wants to wait until 2016 before raising rates, told reporters at a lunch in Washington that he was "perfectly fine" with the statement because it maintains a focus on data-dependency.

    The Fed should wait until inflation is rising toward its 2-percent target before raising rates, he said, even though that entails the possibility of overshooting.

    (Reporting by Michael Flaherty, writing by Ann Saphir; Editing by Alan Crosby)