Kimmitt confident in economic fundamentals

BERLIN (Reuters) - Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said on Friday he was confident about the United States' economic fundamentals in the long term despite a current rough patch and was quite optimistic about the future.

"Our view is that we continue to have confidence in the long-term fundamentals but we're going through a very rough period," Kimmitt said at a conference on transatlantic relations in Berlin.

"We always get through difficult times. We're going to get through this," Kimmitt added.

"I'm quite optimistic about the future."

Economists are worried about the outlook for the U.S. economy which has suffered from a sharp housing downturn and seen related strains in credit markets.

There are also fears about the inflationary effect of rising oil and commodity prices on the world economy.

Kimmitt said he did not expect speculation to have a major impact on commodity prices but that he saw a mismatch between demand and supply on commodity markets.

"We don't see speculation as having a major impact on commodity prices. We see a fundamental mismatch between demand and supply," Kimmitt said.

"That mismatch is what is driving prices." He added that demand for commodities from fast-growing Asian nations would increase."

(Reporting by Iain Rogers, writing by Madeline Chambers)