Fed's Evans sees monetary tightening "a ways away"

CHICAGO (Reuters) - With the economy's recovery likely to be slow and hampered by tight credit and a cautious consumer, the Federal Reserve is still far from needing to tighten its extraordinarily loose monetary policy, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said Thursday.

"If inflation actually started to rise, we'd be very concerned, and we would be altering the trajectory and calibration of our policy," he said. But so far inflation is relatively stable, he said.

"We'll be looking for the economy - is it beginning to recover in a truly vibrant fashion, or is it simply gaining momentum and it's going to take some time," he said.

"All of those will feed into our assessment of when the accommodation should be removed. At the moment, I think that that's still quite a ways away."

Fed policy makers are still discussing the right sequencing of exit strategies when the time comes for monetary tightening, he said. (Reporting by Ann Saphir, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)