EU finance ministers have backed a call from the International Monetary Fund to double its crisis-fighting funds to $500 billion, ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers this weekend.
A diplomat said the ministers had agreed on a document spelling out their joint position at the G20 meeting on March 13-14 in Britain.
The document said the increase in IMF funds should be split fairly among IMF members, particularly those with large currency reserves - in line with previous calls for countries like China and Saudi Arabia to pay a sizeable share.
It also detailed the position of the EU on economic policy, regulation, international institutions, the IMF and Multilateral Development Banks.
'It is essential that the IMF has appropriate financial means to assist countries particularly affected by the current crisis,' it said.
World growth could go below zero - IMF
Global economic growth could dip below zero for the first time in decades in 2009, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said earlier today.
'The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes,' he said at the opening of a conference in Tanzania on the impact of the world financial crisis on Africa.
'Continued deleveraging by world financial institutions, combined with a collapse in consumer and business confidence is depressing domestic demand across the world,' Strauss-Kahn said.
He had said last month he expected zero growth in 2009 and his institution had released data including a 0.5% global growth forecast the month before that.
But as the crisis deepens around the world, the IMF chief said the latest projections being compiled would probably reveal negative growth for the first time in six decades.
'When we release our next package of forecasts at the spring session, that is to say in April, everything leads us to believe that it will indeed reveal a negative global growth for the first time in 60 years,' he said.
Strauss-Kahn said last week he saw no chance of a global recovery before 2010.
