The lobby group representing the world’s biggest financial institutions has criticised plans for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Singapore later this month, saying the meeting should focus more on global economic imbalances and less on reform of the IMF itself.

Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), told reporters in Washington he was “puzzled” by the emphasis on reform. He said that, while overhauling the shareholding structure of the IMF to give more weight to rising emerging market economies might be good policy, it was less of a priority than dealing with imbalances.