Asian and European leaders prepared Friday to endorse a critical role for the International Monetary Fund in aiding countries hit hardest by the global financial meltdown as they seek to forge a common stand on how to right the teetering world economy. Speaking in Beijing on a day when stock markets plunged across Asia, leaders from nations including China, France, Germany and Japan said the rules guiding the global economy needed to be rewritten and international financial institutions such as the IMF given a leading role, signs of a growing consensus ahead of next month's meeting of the 20 largest economies in Washington D.C. “Europe would like Asia to support our efforts and would like to make sure that on the 15th of November we can face the world together and say that the causes of this unprecedented crisis will never be able to happen again,” French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in remarks to the opening ceremony of the Asia-Europe Meeting. A draft of a meeting statement on the crisis seen by The Associated Press called on the IMF and similar institutions to act immediately to help stabilize struggling banks and staunch the flood of red ink on regional bourses. “Leaders agreed that the IMF should play a critical role in assisting countries seriously affected by the crisis, upon their request,” the draft said. If adopted, the statement would be among the strongest calls yet for a leading role in the crisis for the Washington-based fund, long known as the international lender of last resort. Countries as disparate as Hungary, Ukraine, Iceland and Pakistan have already turned to the IMF for help bridging their liquidity crunches. The draft statement also states that leaders agreed to “undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems.” “They agreed to quickly take appropriate initiatives in this respect, in consultation with all stakeholders and the relevant international financial institution,” the statement says. Among the first to publicly endorse the proposal was Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, head of the world's second-largest economy. Aso “strongly supports” a critical role for the IMF, according to Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama. The biennial gathering, known as ASEM, has no mandate to issue decisions and participants differ widely on their views toward international cooperation and intervention by global bodies. Free-trading Singapore and economic powerhouse Germany are attending, along with isolated, impoverished Myanmar and landlocked, authoritarian Laos. Responses to the crises have varied widely so far. Europe has already approved a plan under which the 15 euro countries and Britain put up a total of euro1.7 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in guarantees and emergency aid to help banks. Asian financial systems are less shaky, having had less direct exposure to the toxic sub-prime mortgages that are wreaking havoc on US and European markets. Showing a notable lack of urgency, South Korea, China, Japan and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations recommitted themselves to an $80 billion emergency fund to help those facing liquidity problems - to be established by next June.
