(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said inflation could fall toward the Fed’s 2% target with interest rates held at current levels, and offered potential backing for lowering borrowing costs if price pressures fade.

“Should inflation continue to fall closer to our 2% goal over time, it will eventually become appropriate to begin the process of lowering our policy rate to prevent policy from becoming overly restrictive,” Bowman said in prepared remarks to the South Carolina Bankers Association in Columbia. 

“We are not yet at that point,” she said, adding that she remains cautious with upside risks to prices still in view.

Bowman voted with other Federal Open Market Committee members in December to hold their benchmark policy rate steady in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%. Her previous remarks suggested that inflation pressures could merit further rate increases, an option she held open in Monday’s remarks.

“There is also the risk that the recent easing in financial conditions encourages a reacceleration of growth, stalling the progress in lowering inflation, or even causing inflation to reaccelerate,” she said, adding that a strong labor market could keep core services inflation high as well.

“I will remain cautious in my approach to considering future changes in the stance of policy,” Bowman said.

Earlier Monday, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said inflation has come down more than he expected and is on a path today to reaching the Fed’s 2% goal.

“The goal is to make sure we stay on the path,” he said in a moderated discussion hosted by the Rotary Club of Atlanta, adding that policymakers can continue to let monetary policy remain restrictive.

“We are in a restrictive stance and I’m comfortable with that, and I just want to see the economy continue to evolve with us in that stance and hopefully see inflation continue to get to our 2% level,” he said.

(Updates with Bostic comments in seventh paragraph.)

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