The Group of 20 countries were falling into line yesterday behind a US draft communiqué calling for new mechanisms to generate sustainable and balanced world growth. Economists, however, remained divided on the merits of the plan.

Washington wants an agreement on a “framework for sustainable and balanced growth”, including coordinated economic policies to achieve faster world growth without creating asset bubbles and unsustainable financial flows of money, both of which contributed to the global crisis.

A draft of the text, leaked to Reuters news agency, said the US wanted the rest of the G20 to sign up to a process of “mutual assessment”, policed by the International Monetary Fund, to ensure “policies pursued by individual G20 countries are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced trajectories for the global economy”.