Britain, in its capacity as current chair of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial countries, would make a number of proposals to reform the existing international institutions, said Stephen Byers, chief secretary to the Treasury.

"It is clear that they have been found wanting and need changing. Britain will be taking the lead in this," Byers told a conference.

Brown has been in Japan this week urging the government and central bank to take urgent steps to kick-start the country's moribund economy, which contracted by an annualised 3.3 per cent in the second quarter of this year.

Byers said Brown would be having extensive discussions with the other G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United States -- in the next three weeks.

"We have benefited from the acceleratingintegration of the international economy. Now we must manage it through more difficult times," Byers said.

"I believe the essential answer to the problems of the moment is not less globalisation, not new national structures to separate and isolate economies, but stronger international structures to make globalisation work in harder times as well as easy ones," Byers said.

That was a reference to increasing talk in some countries hit by global economic turmoil for capital controls to prevent them being damaged by large outflows of funds. Malaysia has already gone down that path.

"Our urgent need is closer cooperation, continuing dialogue and an unwavering commitment to open commerce. We must lost let temporary instability put global progress at risk," Byers said.

"There are easy but dangerous shelters -- a return to protectionism, the breakdown of cooperation, the rise of beggar-thy-neighbour policies. But this can only yield further deterioration, not renewed growth," he added.

Britain on Monday washost for a meeting of G7 finance and foreign ministry officials to discuss Russia's financial crisis. On the same day, the G7 countries issued a joint statement pledging to find ways to boost global growth and support the work of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

Brown's planned series of meetings in the next few weeks lead up to a G7 finance ministers' meeting in Washington on October 3, just ahead of the IMF/World Bank annual conference.