Greece presses help button, while the global economy recovers

Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world''s 20 major economies credited the massive amounts of government stimulus that have been provided.

Their joint statement did not address the Greek debt crisis directly, but it did say the countries were committed to continued efforts to ensure a sustained worldwide rebound from the recession.

At the same news conference European Union Monetary Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said that stabilising Greece is a global financial matter. "It is very important that we will succeed in this exercise," said Rehn.

Financial support

The rapidly escalating Greek debt crisis threatened to overshadow the G-20 talks, which were being held in advance of weekend discussions of the policy-setting panels of the International Monetary Fund and its sister lending agency, the World Bank.

Even before the talks began at the headquarters of the 186-nation IMF (international Monetary Fund), the IMF issued a statement pledging an expedited review of Friday''s request by the Greek government for an emergency loan package.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn scheduled one-on-one discussions for the weekend with Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou.

Solutions

European Union finance ministers and the United States are also working on ways for their financial sectors to cope with banks that run into trouble.

One of the options European leaders are looking at is having banks pay a fee toward a "resolution fund"'' that would help unwind banks as a last resort.

Governments are keen to prevent a repeat of the recent financial crisis when rescuing dozens of banks and guaranteeing deposits forced them to pay out (b) billions of euros (US dollars), adding to their mounting public debt.

Trichet warned that the EU should not jump ahead of work completed by international banking regulators, the Basel committee, or the Financial Stability Board, a group of global financial experts who make recommendations to the Group of 20 leading economies.

The G-20

The G-20 (Group of Twenty) is composed of the world''s wealthiest industrial countries plus major emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India, South Korea and Russia.

Geithner noted the improvements in the world economy since the G-20 finance officials met a year ago when global output was falling sharply, financial markets were frozen and millions of people were losing their jobs.

As for future global problems, the G-20 repeated a pledge that all countries would work to eliminate dangerous imbalances, but it avoided prodding China to allow its currency to appreciate against the dollar, a key US aim.