QUOTES-Top Bank of Canada officials speak after rate decision

TORONTO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Below are some key quotes from a news conference by Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers on Wednesday after the central bank held interest rate steady.

MACKLEM ON REDUCTION OF GOVERNMENT BOND HOLDINGS

"What we said today is that once we raise interest rates, we will be considering exiting the reinvestment phase and allowing at least some roll-off of Government of Canada bonds from our balance sheet. At this point, we are not considering outright sales of Government of Canada bonds. But once we increase rates, will be considering allowing Government of Canada bonds to roll off."

MACKLEM ON REVERSAL OF GOODS PRICES

"We haven't built any reversal of goods prices into our projection. If you were to put them into the projection, inflation would come down faster than we forecast. We haven't done that because there are also risks on the other side. There is some uncertainty about how quickly these supply issues will get resolved."

MACKLEM ON GLOBAL GOODS PRICES

"We ran a simulation, a scenario, where there is a 30% reversal in global goods prices. That would actually bring inflation down a little bit below the 2% target next year."

MACKLEM ON RATE HIKES NOT BEING AUTOMATIC

"We are indicating we will need several (hikes). It's not automatic: we will take a decision on interest rates at every meeting ... but the direction is clear"

MACKLEM ON HOW FAST RATES WILL RISE

"The message is pretty clear. We're on a rising path, how far and how fast those are decisions we'll take taken care of at each meeting, depending on economic developments, depending on our outlook for inflation, and what we needed to bring inflation back to target."

MACKLEM ON POSSIBLE PAUSE IN RATE HIKES

"It's not automatic. And we will be assessing at each meeting. And a path doesn't rule out that you take a few steps and then we might pause and assess progress. Those are decisions we're going to need to take moving forward. The other thing I'd say about the idea of a path is when you're starting from exceptionally low interest rates."

MACKLEM ON CONFIDENCE INFLATION WILL COME DOWN

"Why are we confident that inflation will come back down.? We're seeing some evidence that these global supply chain issues are starting to get resolved, if you look at shipping costs, if you look at port backlogs, they look to have peaked, and in some cases coming down."

MACKLEM ON IMPACT OF RISING INTEREST RATES

"As we've signaled, we expect to be raising interest rates and that will dampen demand growth and ensure that domestic sources of inflation do not build up and inflation comes back to target."

MACKLEM ON UNCOMFORTABLY HIGH INFLATION

"The time for emergency policy settings is over. That really reflects the fact that yes, inflation is uncomfortably high. We do expect inflation is going to come down fairly quickly in the second half of this year as the problems in global supply chains get resolved and the pandemic recedes."

MACKLEM ON TODAY'S DECISION

"Today's decision is consistent with the deliberate approach we've taken throughout this pandemic and it also reflects the fact that Omicron is weighing on the economy as we speak."

MACKLEM ON ECONOMIC REOPENING

"There's been a lot of uncertainty and reopening the economy as the variant continues to reverberate through the economy and mutate has proven complicated."

MACKLEM ON MONETARY POLICY AS A SOURCE OF CONFIDENCE

"By being clear and deliberate we are really trying to cut through the noise so that monetary policy is more of a source of confidence and it's not another source of uncertainty."

MACKLEM ON OMICRON

"We are also mindful that Omicron is weighing on the economy and we are going to learn more about Omicron in the coming weeks."

(Reporting by Fergal Smith, Nichola Saminather, Steve Scherer Compiled by Denny Thomas)