In July they were up by 170 per cent, partly because of teething problems with British Gas's new national computer system."I would be very impressed if they achieve this and I certainly wouldn't bet on it. Out of 500,000 households involved, around 75,000 customers, or 15 per cent, have switched to rival companies. Independent firms have offered price discounts of up to 25 per cent to tempt potential customers.Separately, Mr Gardner gave an ambitious commitment to "solve" British Gas's customer service problems by the end of the year. The cuts, which would be made in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset where trials of residential competition are under way, would mean customers would enjoy lower bills from British Gas than elsewhere in Britain. Roy Gardner, the chief executive designate of British Gas Energy, the gas supply business which is soon to be hived off, said yesterday: "We have a whole range of pricing options that we are currently considering." Full domestic competition is not planned for the whole of the UK until 1998, with further trials in the South of England starting in the new year.British Gas said its licence with the watchdog, Ofgas, prevented such price adjustments until competition had been "deemed" to have been "established," though the precise meaning of this phrase was unclear.Mr Gardner said in his view this could happen in the South-west by November, when the trial would have been in progress for six months. British Gas is considering slashing prices later this year for hundreds of thousands of domestic customers in the South-west of England, in an attempt to fend off competition from rival independent suppliers. The expansion of the BIS - which includes Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore - was also intended to reflect the changing global economic order.. Along with the existing "general arrangement to borrow", it will make up to $50bn in emergency loans available to the IMF.The fund's move will come hard on the heels of the recent admission of nine new members to the Bank for International Settlements, the Basle- based central bankers' bank.

This follows the fund's offer of $17bn in stand-by credit to the $50bn international rescue package for Mexico in 1995.The NAB will tap the rising economies such as Korea and Singapore, as well as countries such as Austria and Australia, for the first time. At the fund's annual meeting in Washington later this month its steering committee will consider plans to double the amount raised from its membership through their "quotas". The IMF is already putting the finishing touches to an increase in the amount it can borrow from members through the so-called "new arrangement to borrow" (NAB). The IMF's available funds have been depleted by record lending of $26bn (pounds 16.7bn) in the latest financial year, including its biggest loan, a $10bn sum extended to Russia. The target measure could edge below 2.5 per cent during the next six months.. The International Monetary Fund, the world's economic policeman, is preparing to give newly industrialised countries a greater say in its decisions in return for an infusion of money, writes Diane Coyle. "Monetary policy will need to be tightened next year to head off higher inflation in 1998," said David Walton at investment bank Goldman Sachs.Most predict that inflation will continue to fall in the short term, not least because inflation at the factory gate has reached a 29-year low. City experts said yesterday that the fact that this measure - the headline retail price index less mortgage interest payments - was stuck above the 2.5 per cent target would make it harder for Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to cut interest rates. Ian Shepherdson at HSBC Markets, who thinks the Government will hit its inflation target before long, said: "These figures will make an early rate cut a risky exercise for Mr Clarke."Other analysts had stronger words of caution for the Chancellor.