IMF urges Fed to postpone rate liftoff to first half of 2016

Washington

THE Federal Reserve should hold off from raising interest rates until the first half of 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said as it cut its US growth forecast for the second time in three months.

The lender also said that the dollar was "moderately overvalued" and a further marked appreciation would be "harmful", in a statement released in Washington on Thursday on its annual checkup of the US economy.