Favouring a "new Bretton Woods Agreement", IMF chief Dominque Strauss-Kahn has said an early warning system to detect impending dangers to the world economy must be put together by international financial expertise.
In a letter to the heads of the Government of the Group of 20, who are meeting in Washington later this week for a summit of the global financial crisis, Strauss-Kahn argued there are two immediate broad tasks ahead -- dealing with the fallout of the immediate crisis as well as dealing with the longer term global architecture.
US President George W Bush has called for a G-20 Summit on Nov 15, which will see participation of the heads of the World Bank, IMF and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and will also be attended by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"An early warning system to detect impending dangers to the world economy must find a way of bringing together the scatter of international and national macrofinancial expertise," IMF Managing Director Kahn said.
The IMF official said while he is for a "new" Bretton Wood Agreement, the foundations of this would have to be laid after vigorous discussions of the underlying issues, as was done in the first and original arrangement.
"There have been numerous calls in recent months for a 'new Bretton Woods agreement,' which I strongly endorse... One important lesson of the original agreement was that its foundations were carefully laid through serious and vigorous discussion of the underlying issues.
"I very much welcome the initiative taken by the US President to bring together G-20 leaders...To culminate efforts in a conference, hopefully within the year ahead," he said.