1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises on upbeat Fed statement

The U.S. dollar increased against most major currencies Wednesday as the newly-released Federal Reserve statement showed optimism on the country's labor market, bolstering market speculation for an interest-rate hike by the year-end.

"The labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment," said the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting group, in a statement Wednesday after concluding its two-day policy meeting.

It also noted the housing sector "has shown additional improvement."

Analysts said the central bank had upgraded its assessments of U.S. economy, supporting the popular view that the first rate-hike in decades may occur later this year.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was up 0.27 percent at 97.030 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro declined to 1.1006 dollars from 1.1048 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound hiked to 1.5610 dollars from 1.5601 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar decreased to 0.7298 U.S. dollar from 0.7326 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 123.94 Japanese yen, higher than 123.61 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9670 Swiss franc from 0.9630 Swiss franc and inched up to 1.2936 Canadian dollars from 1.2933 Canadian dollars. Endite