YOKOHAMA (Bloomberg) - Leaders of the world's biggest economies ended four days of talks without taking decisive measures to address the global imbalances that have fuelled asset bubbles and risk leading to a protectionist backlash.

Asia-Pacific leaders on Saturday in Japan pledged to take "concrete steps" toward creating a regional free-trade agreement without setting a target for achieving that goal. Their meeting followed the November 11-12 Group of 20 (G20) summit in Seoul that "opposed protectionist trade actions" while failing to agree on a remedy for trade and investment distortions.

Officials went into the G-20 vowing to reduce global trade friction by agreeing to avoid weakening their currencies to boost exports. Once there, the US and China took turns blaming the other's foreign exchange policy, with President Barack Obama calling the yuan "undervalued" and Chinese officials saying the Federal Reserve's monetary easing was undermining the dollar.

"The problem that people really were concerned about, the effects of US monetary policy in terms of capital flows, was barely addressed at all," said Uwe Parpart, chief economist and strategist for Asia at Cantor Fitzgerald HK Capital Markets. A solution that does not involve China boosting domestic demand and the US increasing savings "deals with symptoms, not the real cause", he said.

Hu indicated no change in his country's currency policy in a November 13 speech, adding that pressure for quick reforms "will do no good to international cooperation". The same day, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon told reporters that the US wants China to let the yuan rise more before Hu visits Washington in January.

Obama flew home yesterday after a 10-day trip aimed at supporting his goal of doubling exports in five years. He pressed Hu on allowing the yuan to strengthen during an 80- minute meeting on November 11 as China's record $28 billion trade surplus with the US in August heightened criticism its government maintains an unfair cap on the currency.

The yuan, also known as the renminbi, has risen about three percent against the dollar since June 19, when China scrapped its two-year peg. China has $2.65 trillion of foreign currency reserves, more than double any other country.

"The pressure from the US is most likely to result in none too subtle threats about the dollar's reserve status," Paul Donovan, deputy head of global economics at UBS AG, said in an e-mail on Saturday. "It is unlikely to speed up the process of renminbi revaluation."