President Clinton yesterday reflected heightened US concern about the state of global financial markets and outlined six steps that should be taken immediately to stave off further crisis.

They were: to work with Japan, Europe and other nations to spur growth; to expand efforts to allow businesses in Asia to emerge from their crippling debt; a request to the World Bank to double its support for a social safety net in Asia; a request for the main industrialised countries to release $15 billion of funds in the General Arrangements to Borrow on the International Monetary Fund to help Latin America; increased lending by the US Export-Import bank over the next three months; and an exhortation to Congress to increase the capital of the IMF.

His points were made as world financial leaders yesterday responded to the threat of a global economic slowdown with the promise of concerted action to stimulate the leading economies if that should prove necessary.

In a statement released in the financial centres, ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrial countries revealed they had been having urgent discussions in the last few days about the "challenges" now facing the international financial system.

Their statement followed strong hints 10 days ago from Mr Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, that he might be ready to ease interest rates if the outlook for the US economy deteriorated.

Last week, the Bank of England dropped a similar hint, while Japanese officials made it known that they were prepared to stimulate their economy by monetising some of Japan's debt.

The G7 statement - issued after a meeting in London of senior foreign and finance officials - suggests that, if necessary, there might be a concerted lowering of interest rates throughout the industrialised world in response to the turmoil. Inflation was low or falling in many parts of the world and the balance of risks in the world economy had shifted. The G7 would, therefore, would explore ways to "reinforce existing programmes in support of growth-oriented policies".

They reaffirmed the importance of the IMF in helping to solve the problems, including the possibility of activating the IMF's General Arrangements to Borrow to increase funds available to it.

Mr Clinton, speaking in New York, said he had asked Mr Robert Rubin, the US Treasury Secretary, and Mr Greenspan, the Fed chairman, to convene within 30 days a meeting of their counterparts in the Group of 22 leading industrialised and emerging economies. This, officials said, was likely to take place at the Washington annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank early next month.

Mr Clinton said that, with a quarter of the world's population living in countries with declining or negative economic growth, "the industrial world's chief priority today plainly is to spur growth". US officials denied that this meant the president was putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

The G22 meeting would discuss what Mr Clinton described as a longer-term project to create international financial institutions to "adapt the international financial architecture to the 21st century".

Discussions have already taken place on this topic. A senior IMF official said yesterday that controls on capital flows could be in the future be regarded in a more positive light by the IMF than it has in the recent past. Meanwhile, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Georgy Mamedov, who briefed the G7 officials on the government's plans yesterday, said the London meeting had been "very successful economically and politically" and described the mood as good and positive. "There was a lot of enthusiasm for the fact that we have a new prime minister and that the period of uncertainty is over," he said.

Mr Mamedov said the government had invited the IMF to send a team of experts to Moscow this week for urgent talks.

Russia is keen to get its hands on another tranche of a $22.6 billion rescue package agreed with the IMF in July. It used the first payment of $4.8 billion in an attempt to support the rouble, which has plunged in value in recent weeks.

Mr Mamedov said the G7 officials had expressed the hope that Russia would succeed as soon as possible in stabilising its economy, whose troubles have helped to trigger steep losses in stock prices around the globe.

"They all have an economic interest in that because the Dow Jones index does not just fall purely by chance," he said.