South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called for need to reform international financial bodies, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, in a bid to resolve global imbalance, South Korean media reported Friday.

"To ensure the IMF to play its role, a fundamental reform in the IMF should come first, which guarantees credibility and legitimacy in the organization," President Lee said, urging a political resolution from world leaders.

The South Korean president also requested a reform of the World Bank to allow equal representation of advanced and developing nations on global financial issues.

"Multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, should pay keen attention to low-income countries' food and energy security," Lee added.

In the mean time, calling global imbalance a root cause of the recent global economic crisis, Lee stressed that world leaders should put efforts on resolving the problem.

Lee said global imbalance, if unsolved, may disrupt developing and newly emerging economies as the countries try to accumulate foreign currency as an insurance against outside shocks.

"We must reinforce our global safety network through the IMF in order to reduce the desire of developing and emerging nations that are more vulnerable to outside shocks to resort to foreign currency," Lee said at during dinner time with the G20 leaders, according to the media report.

In a previous G20 meeting held in London in April, the leaders agreed to boost the IMF's financing capacity by US$1.1 trillion in order to provide aide to financially weak countries.

The South Korean president had welcomed the decision, saying there still was a long way ahead.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2009)