Finance ministers and central bank governors indicated at the weekend that they stood ready to take further action to boost the global economy, but emphasised their deep uncertainty about how events would unfold.

The ministers, meeting formally as governors of the International Monetary Fund, had been expected to focus their attention mainly on the faltering world economy. But apart from disagreements about individual forecasts, the recent actions of central banks in sharply cutting interest rates meant there were few immediate actions that they could recommend.

Instead, the meeting concentrated on longer-term structural reforms, including the perennial issue of sorting out the Japanese banking sector, as well as welcoming the agreement on a new trade round reached last week in Doha.

Mr Horst Kohler, the IMF's managing director, seized the opportunity to berate rich countries for failing to open their economies to the exports of the poorest, which he said would boost the world economy. Reading out statistics on how the world cotton, rice and sugar markets were distorted by protectionism in the European Union, US and Japan, he cemented the growing role of the IMF and the World Bank as a strong platform for trade liberalisation.

On the prospects for the world economy, uncertainty ruled.

Mr Paul O'Neill, the US Treasury Secretary, reiterated a disagreement with the IMF's forecast for US growth next year, which was cut this week from 2.2 to 0.7 per cent, and said he had bet Mr Kohler the cost of a dinner that the IMF would be proved wrong. "It is a comfort to know that the economies profession is so imprecise," he said.