Europe is expected to come under pressure to take more action to help boost world economic growth when top finance officials from the world's seven richest countries meet in Washington later today.

With Japan still struggling to emerge from recession despite huge stimulus packages, the focus of attention is switching from Tokyo to Europe in the search for someone to share the responsibility for world economic growth with Washington.

The related issue of yen-dollar-euro exchange rates, increased debt relief for the world's poorest nations and measures to fend off future crises will also be debated by finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

President Clinton, echoing the sentiments of private analysts and IMF officials in Washington, has said concerted measures taken last year by the G7 have managed to stop the rot in the world economy that set in with the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

While global momentum will remain sluggish this year, when output should expand by only 2.3 per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund, the picture brightens considerably in 2000, when a worldwide growth of 3.4 per cent is foreseen.

But both the IMF and the Clinton administration have made clear their anxiety about acute imbalances in the growth pattern, with the high-flying US economy accounting for nearly half the growth in the world's output last year.

The US ran up a record $168 billion trade deficit in 1998, however, with a $200 billion deficit forecast for this year, and IMF managing director Mr Michel Camdessus has expressed concern that rising trade imbalances between the dollar, yen and euro areas could destabilise the world economy.

It is time for the US economy to slow down for a soft landing, Mr Camdessus said last week, and "more than time" for the European economies "to do everything to stimulate growth."

The G7 ministers will also discuss the current exchange rates of the yen, dollar and euro.