The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to raise Fed funds rate a quarter-percent to 2.5% in the two-day meeting starting today. Most analysts anticipate sixth straight increase in a row as the US monetary policy makers have been following their “accommodative” ‘measured” policy of rate increases since June 2004.

The FOMC will add new members to its voting panel this time including Michael Moskow of Chicago, Gary Stern of Minneapolis and Anthony Santomero of P The U.S. economy is expected to show expansion at a 4.4% annual rate in 2004, and an addition of 2.2 million jobs, in line with the government’s estimate of fourth-quarter growth issued Jan. 28.

``I don’t think that these changes are likely to have a significant impact on the intermediate term strategy that the committee has laid out recently,’’ said J. Alfred Broaddus, former president of the Richmond Fed bank.

The Fed will decide to stop increasing its benchmark rate when it hits on the “neutral” level that will neither stimulate nor curb economic growth. Speculations on the neutral rate have hovered around 3-5%.

Before that, the Fed reduced the key rate to a 46-year low of 1% to combat the after-effects of Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the consequent economic downturn.

Today’s meeting is longer than the usual one-day discussion and extra time is used by the FOMC to prepare reports to Congress on the state of the economy.

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan will present the report in Congress on Feb. 16 and 17.