国际英语新闻：Was anything achieved at the IMF meeting?

Still, the communique released after the meeting' s conclusion fell short on details on how countries would coordinate policy decisions.

The document stressed that the rejection of protectionism must remain a key element of a response to the global economic downturn, but did not elaborate on what multilateral actions should be taken.

Experts said the threat of protectionism is a severe one that could damage a still fragile recovery, and a growing trend toward populist anti-trade sentiment has some observers jittery.

"This issue seems to be unraveling quickly. And we know from history that protectionism shrinks the economy and does not increase the economy," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.

The communique underscored a "strong commitment to continue working collaboratively to secure strong, sustainable, and balanced growth and to refrain from policy actions that would detract from this shared goal," but did not flesh out whether any concrete movements along these lines would occur.

On financial sector reform and aid to low income countries, the fund provided no new concrete plans.

"Rebalancing" the relationship between developing and advanced economies was a major theme over the weekend, but the fund' s calls for advanced economies to shift focus and rely more on exports and for developing economies to rely more on domestic demand were of a general nature.

The communique called on the fund to "deepen its work in these areas, including in-depth studies to help increase the effectiveness of policies to manage capital flows," but provided no specific plans of action. The document added that participants "look forward to reviewing further analysis and proposals over the next year."

IMF REFORM

More details, however, were provided on plans to reform the fund, and Strauss-Kahn voiced optimism about the completion of a package of reforms that is expected reflect the importance of emerging markets that are leading the global recovery.

On Saturday Strauss-Kahn said the IMF was inching closer toward a number of changes, including shifting "quota share" -- the system that determines a member's maximum financial commitment to the IMF, as well as its voting power -- by 5 percent from advanced to developing economies by January next year.

Strauss-Kahn said he expected an agreement on the issue in weeks or even days, in spite of some diverging views.

Youssef Boutros-Ghali, chief of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, said, "We have gone extensively into the reforms of the institution, of the IMF...The reforms regarding quotas, governance, with all its components, the composition of the executive board, the size of the executive board, and a number of those elements. There has been significant progress."

Still, Mark Fried from Oxfam said that Europeans continue refusing to give up their dominance of the IMF board. "This is a disappointing outcome for these meetings," he said.