"It is still not clear who will replace the US consumer as a source of demand," World Bank president Robert Zoellick said Monday in Istanbul, on the eve of the bank's annual meetings with the International Monetary Committee.

Before the crisis, the division of labour seemed simple. American households piled on debt to buy consumer products manufactured in China and around the world, driving up global growth.

In 2008, the United States, the world's biggest economy, consumed 13.2 percent of global imports, according to the World Trade Organisation.

The worst crisis since the Great Depression has restacked the deck.

"The household saving rate in the United States has risen sharply and could stay elevated for some time," said IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

"In such a scenario, the responsibility for powering the global growth engine will fall on other countries, particularly those that relied on export-led growth," he added.

But, he warned, that "making this transition will not be easy."

The Chinese economy, clearly the country the IMF chief had in mind, is still far from operating at full throttle, despite Beijing's injection of some 4.0 trillion yuan (585 billion dollars, 398 billion euros) into the economy over two years to stimulate growth and offset a drop in exports.

The Chinese, lacking a strong social safety net, save a lot as insurance against sickness, old age and other difficulties.

Nevertheless, said the head of the Asian Development Bank, Jong-Wha Lee, the huge profits reaped by Chinese firms hardly ever reach workers' pockets.

He said company profits should be redirected toward households to help them boost spending to bolster badly needed domestic demand.

Clearly, wages need to rise in China. That would allow other countries, notably in Africa, to develop by benefiting from expected offshoring of jobs by Chinese firms toward lower-wage countries, the World Bank's Zoellick said.

China, which could face problems next year linked to credit growth, "can assist" in the recovery but will lack the power to be the main growth engine, he said.

"A balanced and inclusive global economy needs multiple poles of growth -- and not just adding China and India," he said.

"Countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and a wider Middle East can assist in the future if they invest today. Over time, investments in Africa, a market of almost a billion people, can integrate its markets and become another source of growth."

But some experts say more innovative steps are necessary.

The new engine of growth could be found by "retrofitting the global economy for climate change," Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said at a news conference in Istanbul.

"The price of carbon is zero, the correct price is probably 80-100 dollars the tonne. With this mispricing you misallocate resources," he said.

"With 80 dollars, you provide businesses incentives to do lot more investment to design capital goods for housing, transportation systems to reflect the real social cost of carbon," he said.

"If in Copenhagen they make a agreement with a significant price of carbon, that would be the most important step in the economic recovery," said the former World Bank chief economist.

World powers are to gather in the Danish capital in December for an international climate change conference aimed a striking a new accord to fight global warming.

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