British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday that the main purpose of the G20 summit is to bring world leaders together to coordinate policies in deal with the current global economic crisis.

In meeting with a group of journalists from G20 countries at 10 Downing Street, Brown said "The purpose of G20 (summit) is to bring people together to agree common policies and indeed coordinate policies that can deal with problems particularly of financial instability and lack of growth, the loss of trade, the loss of jobs that are hurting every continent."

"It is true that 2008 was a year when the financial crisis was global" he said, but "I think 2009 can be the year when we ensure that there is a global community we can work together to solve the problems."

The prime minister said "First of all, we've got to deal with the reconstruction of our banking and financial system. And I believe that we will sure that the world can come together to agree common rules for the future.

"Second, we've got to ensure that the global economy can grow over the next period of time, and obviously we want a return to high level of trade, so we want to do something.

"Thirdly, we would want to help the poorest countries and help emerging market countries that they've got their own problems. We will be concerned about the rise of the poverty and the number of countries, and what we can do about that.

"And fourth, we want to restructure our international institutions for the future. So, institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that were built for the 1940s, we've got to adapt them to the new need of 2009," including some changes in IMF quotas for developing countries.

Answering the question raised by Xinhua about anti-protectionism, Brown said "I think we've got a duty to say that protectionism protects no one effectively in the long run, that protectionism can become the word to ruin."

"So, I think, what we'll be anxious to do at the G20 is to ensure that we have a proper monitoring mechanism so that we can deal with problems whether there is protectionism when they arrive, but I think also we want to ensure that we can expend trade around the world," he added.

Brown said he just finished his telephone talks with US President Barack Obama about the G20 before meeting the journalists. He also said he would look forward to meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the G20 summit in London to improve the bilateral relations.

The G20 summit will be held in London on April 2, and leaders from G20 countries and international institutions like UN, IMF, World Bank, European Union, African Union and the Association of Southeast Nations will attend the summit.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2009)