World Bank president James Wolfensohn and IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato said there were already support schemes in place to help developing countries cope with greater trade libera-lisation.

"On the textile side we are working on a country by country basis, but we are not 100 percent clear on the way the textile negotiations are going to come out," Wolfensohn said after a meeting with the World Trade Organ-isation.

Rato told the WTO's 148 member states that IMF assistance under its Trade Integration Mechanism "addresses part of this problem" but offered no other initiative to provide assistance.

China, which stands to make huge gains in major export markets like the US and Europe after the quotas are lifted, earlier this month called on the World Bank and IMF to "significantly enh-ance" assistance for rival smaller exporters.

About 20 small or poor textile producing nations, including Mexico, Mauritius and Tunisia, have urged other trading nations to temper the impact of the binding agreement concluded nine years ago, which they fear will lead to massive job losses.

During their regular contact session with the WTO, both the World Bank and IMF emphasised existing support in place to tackle balance of payments problems, notably the IMF's recently introduced integration mechanism.

"The mechanism is directed at the possible balance of payments impact of liberalisation by other countries, agreed in the context of the WTO and implemented unilaterally on a non-discriminatory basis," Rato said.

Bangladesh became the first country to obtain funding from the IMF scheme in July specifically to help it tackle balance of payments problems under the global liberalisation of the textiles trade, he added.