Leaders who attended the G20 financial summit hailed the historic meeting on Saturday for laying a foundation for a more coordinated global response system to the world economic crisis.

In a summary of the US-hosted summit, US President George W. Bush said that leaders from the world's top economies had agreed to modernize financial regulation and cooperate more fully to keep the global financial meltdown from getting worse.

"One of the key achievements was to establish certain principles and take certain actions for adapting our financial systems to the realities of the 21st century," he told a post-summit press conference.

He noted that one of the important agreements reached during the summit was to "reject protectionism and refrain from erecting new trade barriers."

The European Union (EU), another significant player in the summit, also applauded its achievement, which can be boiled down to agreement on four principles -- a coordinated and concerted stimulus through the use of budgetary measures to support demand and the increase of financial assistance to emerging and developing countries; a new regulation for financial markets to prevent a similar crisis from happening again; a global economic governance more open to emerging and developing countries for more justice and efficiency; and a rejection of protectionism and more openness toward exchanges.

"I was very happy with the results of summit," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday afternoon. "It has laid the foundation for the future."

Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the rotating chairmanship in the EU, gave credit to the summit since it was the first time for different countries to gather together in Washington D.C. and agree on principles and action plans on how to solve the world economic crisis.

Britain, which will chair G20 starting January, deemed the summit a start of the "road to the new Bretton Woods," referring to the 1944 meeting in New Hampshire, the United States, where the international monetary protocols were created to govern trade, banking and other financial relations among nations.

"There is a clear determination on the part of world leaders in every continent to take the necessary action to move economies out of difficult period," he said.

For emerging economies, some found the summit becoming opportunities to raise their voices.

Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters after the meeting that Brazil was pleased since the summit "makes something viable that was not possible before."

However, the country's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, still urged for more voice, more representation for developing countries in international economic organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.