US treasury secretary Henry Paulson today urged intensified global co-operation to stabilise financial markets and said countries must be careful not to harm one another while they guard their own interests.
"Governments have and must continue to take individual and collective actions to provide much-needed liquidity, strengthen financial institutions through the provision of capital...and protect the savings of our citizens," he said in a statement.
Mr Paulson, along with treasury under secretary David McCormick, spoke ahead of Friday's Group of Seven gathering of finance ministers and central bankers from rich nations that is to focus heavily on the effort to calm markets.
Mr Paulson recited the numerous measures that members of the G7 -- the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- and others have taken to try to halt plunging stock prices and rebuild confidence, but said more was needed.
We must also take care to ensure that our actions are closely co-ordinated and communicated so that the action of one country does not come at the expense of others or the stability of the system as a whole," Paulson said.
The United States garners much of the blame for the global crisis, which originated in subprime mortgage markets for risky borrowers and has since tainted nearly all classes of lending and caused banks to hoard capital.
Mr Paulson said he wants a special meeting the Group of 20, which includes key emerging-market countries that also are hard-hit by the financial crisis, after the G7 meeting.
He warned that turmoil "will not end quickly" and said it may be several weeks before Treasury begins buying unwanted and illiquid assets from financial firms under a $700-billion program that Congress approved last week and that is now US law.