President and Chief Executive Officer William C. Dudley of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York spoke before the Rochester Business Alliance, in Rochester, N.Y., on Wednesday. Investors have a lot more to digest with China devaluing its currency, but the heart of the matter is that Dudley sees the Fed being much nearer rather than farther way from raising interest rates.

Unfortunately, most of his speech was broader, about the changing developments and reinvention of the modern workforce, rather than being pointed about any major direction on interest rates.

The reason that Dudley is so widely followed is because being the president of the New York Fed comes with more clout than most other branches. Opinions on that vary, but think about where the financial center of America is.

Dudley is the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). In 2012, he was appointed chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Dudley’s full speech is here, and it discusses the grassroots trips around the region.

It is the other comments that matter. Dudley sees no evidence that the world economy is headed the wrong way, and he also restated that the Fed has tools available if a financial shock or foreign shock were to derail the economic improvements. He also said that the Fed is certainly nearer to raising interest rates — hopefully in the near future.

Despite commenting that they will be watching the China yuan devaluation and the impact from such a move, Dudley said that he would leave China’s own currency policy up to the Chinese. Still, he thinks the People’s Bank of China decision to devalue has potentially huge implications for the global economy.

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