This is a critical month for the world economy. Next Wednesday, Opec meets to consider oil production. Finance ministers and bank governors will review global risks at the Group of Seven, International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. On Friday, 25 finance ministers debate the European Union's thorniest question: the slow progress of the EU's 10-year programme of economic reform.

They meet amid an uneven and still fragile global recovery. Oil, $10 a barrel in 1999, is now over $40 having peaked close to $50 in August. And there are still risks in the continuing imbalances caused by divergent growth rates in the US, Europe and Japan, from public debt in some emerging market economies and from Japan's financial and corporate problems. Global uncertainties require a shared vigilance and a global response to push ahead with long-needed economic reforms.