BUSAN, South Korea - Finance chiefs of the Group of 20 leading economies worked Friday to craft an agenda for keeping the global recovery on track and fending off future crises, sidestepping conflicts to present a united show of support for Europe's $1 trillion bailout.
The talks in this southern port city by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other top finance ministers will set the agenda for a summit in Toronto later this month -- and years beyond.
The leaders face myriad demands as they search for consensus on how to reshape the global financial system and avert a "double dip" back into recession due to the European sovereign debt crisis.
"Today we are meeting at a critical time when our co-operation is more important than ever to address significant economic risks and firmly secure the global recovery," said Yoon Jeung-hyun, Minister of Strategy and Finance, at the opening as the chair of the session.
The leaders looked likely to defer conflicts over other issues, such as banking regulation, in favour of a strong show of support for Europe's handling of its sovereign debt crisis.
"Sustaining world economic growth is the most important item on the G-20 agenda this weekend," said British Chancellor George Osborne.
But Osborne said he still would be pushing for agreements on tightening banking capital requirements to be concluded.
"We want to end the uncertainty," he said.
"Countries with high budget deficits must show that they can deal with them," Osborne said in remarks conveyed by his press secretary, Jean-Christophe Gray. "Equally surplus countries, such as China, must show that they too can support economic growth going forward."
World Bank experts called for the group to recalibrate its agenda to take into account the growing potential of developing countries to help power long-term growth.
"The G-20 needs the rest of the developing world for reasons of self-interest," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a World Bank managing director, said at a conference Friday on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting.
Growth in developing countries is forecast to average 6 per cent this year -- twice the rate for rich countries, she noted.
"G-20 countries need new sources of demand. The developing world has the potential, and it has the people," she said. "The G-20 must recognize this and give development the central place it deserves in its agenda."
Like most international gatherings, the G-20 meeting has its critics. South Korean labour union activists gathered in front of Busan's city hall Friday, accusing the group of being "a bunch of elitists who fail to deliver action."
"We, the honest public, are the ones suffering from the consequences of the financial crisis because these leaders aren't resolving the fundamental problem," Jung Yong-geon of the Korean Federation of Clerical & Financial Labor Unions said. "They only speak of more strictly regulating financial capital, never executing any policies."
Managing the European debt fiasco and resulting market turmoil has recently overshadowed longer term efforts to reform banking regulation and set up financial safety nets for countries emerging from crisis.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised the steps Europe is taking to deal with the crisis but said the challenge was in the execution.
"They have laid out a very strong program and they are starting to put that in place and it is starting to get a little more traction," Geithner said in an interview with CNBC while en route to Busan.
The G-20, founded in 1999, shifted its focus to crisis management after the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. It now needs to set an agenda that will promote sustainable future growth, said Asian Development Bank chief economist Jong-Wha Lee.
Rich economies can generate jobs by funding construction of crucial infrastructure in developing countries. They must also rebalance growth to help ensure capital is available for crucial productive uses, he said.
South Korea, which emerged from poverty to become a technology and industrial powerhouse, assumed the rotating G-20 chair this year and will convene a summit in November in its capital, Seoul. It favours including development in the G-20 agenda.
The finance ministers last met in Washington in April. They are preparing a communique to be issued Saturday when their meeting ends.
Not all agree with the idea of having the G-20 manage global development. Some worry that expanding its agenda further will make it less effective.
"We don't want an organization whose agenda is too big to succeed," said Ifzal Ali, chief economist of the Islamic Development Bank.
Agreement also is far from certain on proposals for a bank tax, for setting new standards on how much capital banks need to protect against a future financial crisis and erecting "financial safety nets" to help emerging economies vulnerable to financial flows.
The U.S. and Europe favour a bank tax to pay for future bailouts, but others such as Canada and Australia oppose it given that their banks weathered the global crisis intact.
Geithner declined to say if the U.S. wants the G-20 to adopt a global target of 12 per cent of an institution's assets being held as a capital reserve -- one option being considered. That would represent an increase from a current U.S. target of around 8 per cent.
"We want to find a balance between making sure that these firms run with much more conservative, much stronger cushions against loss in future crises," he said, refusing to say what target was being considered.
