Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso was also to speak about development aid at the World Economic Forum, where business and political leaders chastened by crisis are seeking ways to fix the financial system amid pleas not to forget the world's poorest.

'We're facing two major risks: The first is social unrest. The second is protectionist risks,' French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said, stressing the challenges to governments of helping atrophying industries without damaging free trade.

The director of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, was to take the stage later at the gathering of more than 2,500 business and political leaders in this elegant Alpine resort.

Trade negotiators from about 20 countries were meeting on the sidelines of the forum on Saturday to discuss ways to advance the eight-year Doha round of trade talks.

Top CEOs and politicians at Davos have urged the new US administration in particular to shun protectionism.

The fear is that the world's largest market may respond to recession with new barriers to foreign imports, pushing other countries to respond in kind.

'Protectionism is probably one of the most contagious diseases,' Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said in an interview with the AP.

The fear of policy makers and businessmen in the US and abroad is that Washington may revert to the strategy it employed at the beginning of the Great Depression, when it hiked tariffs on thousands of foreign goods to protect American business.

In the end, the US Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 led to worldwide retaliation and the devastation of international commerce. World powers after World War II tried to guard against a repeat of the experience by setting up the Bretton Woods global financial institutions.

President Barack Obama faces a dilemma over 'buy American' provisions in a massive economic stimulus bill moving through Congress: backing the measures could set off a trade war; opposing them could trigger a backlash from his supporters.

The provisions would require major public works projects to favor US steel, iron and manufacturing over imports.

Beyond protectionism, the leaders at Davos heard fervent appeals on behalf of the 'bottom billion' people in the world economy.

'These are the poorest people who live on less than a dollar a day, who are vulnerable to every shock that comes,' UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the forum on Friday.

'As we struggle to cover these and other challenges we must not waver in our commitment to the poorest of the poor. We must stand by those who are most vulnerable.'

The global meltdown has already sapped the developed world of some of its generosity: forecasts calculate a precipitous drop in international investments in poor and developing nations, while charities are resizing their own operations as donations drop.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was also to speak Saturday of preparations for a meeting of the Group of 20 richest nations in London in April that will seek systems for deflecting future crises.

Mr Brown and other leaders believe an international early alert system of some sort might have prevented the rapid spread of contagion in the world financial markets. -- AP