US President Barack Obama's nomination of a new Federal Reserve chief on Wednesday will not change the current situation of where the Fed is in terms of tapering the quantitative easing, or QE, experts said of the nomination.

Janet Yellen, 67, an American economist who is the vice-chairwoman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, will fill in the long-speculated spot to lead the Fed if approved by the Senate, said administration officials Tuesday night.

But the new chairwoman will most likely carry on existing polices, said Douglas C. Borthwick, managing director of New York-based Chapdelaine Foreign Exchange.

"Yellen will be a Fed Chair that likely will follow the programs first designed by Fed Chairman Bernanke," said Borthwick. "For as long as the US lacks leadership regarding the level of debt, QE will continue. And as long as the US economy continues to exhibit lack of growth, QE is likely to continue."

The nomination came as the federal government was on a partial shutdown for the first time in 17 years after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach an agreement on government spending. The news of the nomination came just hours after President Barak Obama's news conference where he called for ending the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling to avoid a possible default next week.

"If there's a way to solve this, it has to include reopening the government and saying America's not going to default, it's going to pay our bills," said Obama, adding he is willing to negotiate with the Republicans.

US added 169,000 new jobs last month and the unemployment rate was down to 7.3 percent.

The discussion of possibly tapering off the current QE3 - an $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program to stimulate the economy - is fading away, as economic figures haven't been as good "as expected" for the government to make this move.

"Taper is off the table, and unlikely to return to the US discussion until employment and housing data significantly move to the upside," said Borthwick. "The US dollar is likely to weaken."

The new chair nominee - would be the first woman to run the Fed - and was one of two most likely candidates for the post until the other, Lawrence Summers, Obama's former National Economic Council director and Clinton's Treasury Secretary, withdrew his name from consideration last month.

A Brooklyn native, Yellen has served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a White House adviser, a Fed governor during the Clinton administration, as well as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

If approved by the Senate, Yellen will succeed Ben Bernanke, whose term ends next January, completing an eight-year run at the job.

"Janet Yellen is superbly qualified to lead the Federal Reserve Board, the President has chosen wisely and well," said Nicholas C. Hope, director of the Stanford Center for International Development.

Yellen, as many experts put it, will be forming policies to help the US economy grow while facing many challenges - including the question of when and how the government will exit the QE3 program -in her upcoming four-year term.

Ann Lee, an economics professor at New York University, said she had one interaction with Yellen where the newly nominated chairman struck her as "concerned with sticking to the party line".

"My best guess is that she will be like Obama: another figurehead," said Lee.

Zhang Qidong in San Francisco contributed to this story.

yuweizhang@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 10/09/2013 page1)