THE SUMMIT of the world's leading countries next weekend is unlikely to produce radical change in the way the global economy is governed, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Comparisons between the November 15th summit and the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, which created the fund, were overblown, said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director. The most the summit could achieve would be to bring together analysis already done and set working groups in motion for agreements further down the line, possibly in six months or so.

"Expectations should not be oversold," Mr Strauss Kahn said. "Things are not going to change overnight. Bretton Woods took two years to prepare. A lot of people are talking about Bretton Woods II. The words sound nice but we are not going to create a new international treaty."

Mr Strauss-Kahn's tone stands in contrast to that of European leaders, notably British prime minister Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

However it chimes with the view of the outgoing administration of US president George Bush, which has said the summit is unlikely to take important binding decisions. It remains unclear what role president-elect Barack Obama or his advisers will play in the summit.

"If the summit sets up working groups, they will operate as a bridge to the new administration," Mr Strauss-Kahn said. "In this respect, it would be nonsense to work without the input of the new administration."

The IMF managing director also sounded cautious over the idea of an "early warning system" for the global economy to predict financial crises - another repeated demand of Mr Brown.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said the IMF could use its expertise to assess economies on a regional and national level. However, contrary to some who have argued for it to become a global financial regulator, he signalled it would maintain its function of providing analysis and lending to countries in trouble.