US Treasury¹ Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that the $700bn (£425bn) US financial bail-out fund will be extended until October next year.

美国财政部长蒂莫西·盖纳宣布，7000亿美元的财政补助将会宽限到明年十月。

Mr Geithner extended the bail-out package to 3 October 2010

The extension was "necessary to assist American families and stabilise financial markets", he said in a letter to congressional leaders.

But he pledged to deploy² no more than $550bn of it.

The bail-out scheme was scheduled to expire期满 at the end of the year but will now run until 3 October 2010.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp) was established in the last few weeks of the Bush administration.

Money from the fund has helped rescue Wall Street banks, car makers³ and other companies.

'Severe pressure'

On Tuesday, President Obama said in a speech that it was his intention to wind up卷起，结束 the scheme.

Mr Geithner said that while many of the individual Tarp programmes would be wound down, "significant challenges remain".

"Too many American families, homeowners, and small businesses still face severe financial pressure. Although the economy is recovering, foreclosures赎回权 are increasing, and unemployment is unacceptably high," he wrote.

He also confirmed that the long-term cost of Tarp would be $200bn less than the previous Treasury forecast of $341bn.

Meanwhile, government figures showed that US wholesale批发，大规模 inventories⁵ unexpectedly rose in October for the first time in more than a year.

Wholesale⁴ inventories rose 0.3%, bringing an end to a record 13 consecutive⁶ months of declines, the Commerce Department said.