Fed officials say asset buying could slow next month Two Federal Reserve officials said the US central bank might start slowing asset purchases as early as next month, suggesting last week's sluggish payrolls data were not sufficiently weak for them to take such a move off the table. Charles Evans, one of the more dovish officials at the Federal Reserve, said he would "clearly not" rule out the tapering of bond buying at the next meeting of US monetary policy makers on September 17-18. The remarks by Mr Evans, the president of the Chicago Fed, are significant because he is known as a staunch defender of the US central bank's quantitative easing programme, and this year is a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates. Mr Evans said the Fed was "quite likely to reduce the flow purchase rate starting later this year" though he added that "I couldn't tell you exactly which month that will be." His comments show that the US central bank is not overly concerned that job creation in the US economy slowed to 162,000 positions in July, a weaker reading than predicted by economists. It indicates that a moderately strong report on the labour market for August - even if it is not stellar - could tilt the Fed towards tapering its QE programme at its next meeting, assuming other economic data are also relatively upbeat. "We've seen good improvement in the labour market, there's no question in my mind about that," Mr Evans said. "I'm still wanting to see greater evidence that it's a sustainable improvement," he added. Separately, Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who does not hold a vote on the FOMC this year, also suggested Fed tapering could begin next month, assuming some improvement in the data. "If we see the growth pick up in the second half and if we see job gains ... at a higher range, say 180-200,000 - I think with other fundamentals improving we probably are in a position to remove ... the extraordinary policy programme over the medium term," Mr Lockhart said in an interview with Market News International. But Mr Lockhart noted that the timing of slower asset purchases would depend on the incoming economic data. "[With a] kind of ambiguous picture of mixed data that signal neither accelerating strength nor necessarily deterioration, but that kind of moping along in the middle, then I think it's not a foregone conclusion that the asset purchase programme should be removed or be removed rapidly," Mr Lockhart added. The comments by both Mr Evans and Mr Lockhart signal that Fed officials are also quite confident that the increase in mortgage rates and other borrowing costs in recent months is not tightening financial conditions to the point that it is damaging the economy. This is also a factor that Fed officials have said they will be watching closely as they weigh whether to taper asset purchases. Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, had indicated that slower bond buying could begin at some point this year, and end altogether by the middle of next year as the unemployment rate reaches the "vicinity" of 7 per cent. In July, it fell from 7.6 per cent to 7.4 per cent, moving closer to that level.