Leaders of the world's biggest economies have papered over their differences at the G20 with an agreement to develop new guidelines to prevent so-called "currency wars".
However the agreement falls well short of the 4 per cent limit on national trade deficits and surpluses proposed by US President Barack Obama, which was blocked by exporting countries China and Germany.
But Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the agreement as "good for British jobs, good for British businesses and good for British exporters".
And he added: "By acting together we can maximise world growth and we can cut world unemployment. This is not some obscure economic issue - in the end, it is about jobs."
UK Chancellor George Osborne insisted that the new "indicative guidelines" agreed at the summit in Seoul marked a significant step forward in shaping a new global economic framework for the post-crisis world.
It is understood that Britain, the US and Canada overcame opposition from some other G20 members to secure agreement that finance ministers should draw up the guidelines in time for the first assessment to take place at the next G20 summit in France next June.
High-consuming countries like the US and Britain have accused China of keeping the value of its yuan currency artificially low to make its exports cheap, fuelling the massive trade imbalances which played a part in the 2008 crisis.
