World leaders are jockeying to host the next G20 summit, even before they start arriving for economic talks in London, which some fear could be marred by violent anti-capitalist protests and only limited agreement on a way out of the recession.

Italy, France, Japan and South Korea are among the countries hoping to take forward the G20 agenda, as Gordon Brown, British prime minister, conceded the London summit was part of a process rather than an event.

Mr Brown's spokesman said the London summit was “very much part of a process”.Mr Brown has had to scale back his earlier grandiose rhetoric for Thursday's summit, in which he spoke of a “new Bretton Woods” and a “global new deal”. Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, let it be known yesterday he still feared the London summit would produce “grand declarations” but little concrete action.