(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve should hike rates again so as not to fall behind in a strengthening economy, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Friday.

"I see a gradual upward pace in interest rates as being appropriate," Mester said in a television interview with CNBC from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "That doesn't mean we are behind the curve now but I do think that it makes sense to be starting to move interest rates up on that gradual path."

The world's top central bankers are meeting at Jackson Hole this week for an economics conference.

(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)