LONDON - THE head of the International Monetary Fund said the European Central Bank (ECB) has scope to cut interest rates, adding that the lending agency would need more funds over the next six months, the BBC reported on Monday.

'In some parts of the world - Japan, the United States - interest rates have been cut very much, but it can be done more aggressively in other parts,' the IMF managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told the BBC in an interview.

'(The ECB has) room to decrease the interest rate, but nevertheless the stress has to be put on fiscal policy,' he said.

Mr Strauss-Kahn also said the IMF had enough money for the immediate future but was likely to need at least $100 billion (S$152.4 billion) of extra funding over the next six months, the BBC reported on its website.

'The number of countries having problems at the same time has dramatically increased and they come to the IMF asking for support. So we need more resources,' he said. 'The question is to be able to face the problem in six months from now.'