Fed's Evans says mid-2016 rate hike would get inflation to goal

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve does not need to resort to negative interest rates or other policies to further ease monetary policy in order to lift excessively low inflation back to the central bank's 2-percent goal within a few years, a top Fed official said on Friday. "We think that just delaying the fed funds rate liftoff currently until about the middle of 2016 and then a gradual path would be consistent with us getting inflation back up to 2 percent within a reasonable period of time," Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said after a speech to the CFA Society Milwaukee. "I would like it to move up more quickly than that, but at the moment we are thinking that that’s what appropriate policy would be". (Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)