G20 MEETING:MINISTERS OF finance and central bankers attending the G20 meeting at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington yesterday were expected to conclude that the world is on the path to economic recovery, despite uneven economic growth and fears raised by the Greek debt crisis.

Greece’s request yesterday to draw down €45 billion in emergency loans upstaged discussions on the undervalued Chinese yuan and financial regulation.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the fund was “prepared to act expeditiously” on the Greek request.

British chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling urged the euro group to agree quickly to preserve confidence in financial markets. “Unless you sort this out, it will simply delay confidence coming back to the world economy generally,” he said. “We have got to make sure that Greece is put on a proper footing.”

Earlier in the week, the IMF called the Greek crisis a “wake-up call” and said rising government debt had replaced stress in financial markets as the leading threat to the global economy.

Governments worldwide have spent $5 trillion (€3.84 trillion) in stimulus packages designed to reverse the global recession.

The G20 communique, which was expected late yesterday, was likely to stress the need to balance growth between exporting countries such as China and Germany and the most indebted consumer countries, mainly the US.

US treasury secretary Tim Geithner has in recent weeks led a campaign for Beijing to strengthen its currency. Mr Geithner received support from Brazil and Europe, with a draft EU document calling for “effective real appreciation of the renminbi”.

But Japanese finance minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday night that leaders were “mindful about not ordering each other to do things in an open forum” and warned that singling out China for mention “could actually spur a backlash”.

More than two years after the global economic crisis started, the G20 is still struggling to reach agreement on financial reforms to ensure such a crisis does not reoccur. The IMF this week proposed taxes on banks’ non-deposit liabilities and the sum of their profit and compensation. These taxes would be used to create a fund to cover the cost of future bailouts. The US and most EU countries have embraced the idea, but it is opposed by Canada, Japan and Australia.

The G20, which accounts for 85 per cent of global gross domestic product, last September declared itself the main forum for setting international economic policy. Its members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the US and the EU.

The debate on financial regulation within the G20 is mirrored in the US Senate, where Democrats and Republicans were to spend the weekend hammering out details of a draft Bill on the issue. Senate leader Harry Reid announced on Thursday that he would call a vote on Monday to bring the legislation to a final debate.

The US legislation is based on G20 pledges to reform the financial system, though Mr Strauss-Kahn has said it “comes too soon in terms of having a global answer”.

The Bill, drafted by Senate banking committee chairman Chris Dodd, would ban proprietary trading (where a bank gambles its own funds), impose tough regulations on complex financial derivatives, give shareholders a non-binding vote on executive compensation, and create a consumer protection bureau at the US Federal Reserve.

It would also allow the government to dismantle “too big to fail” firms whose demise could threaten the entire economy.