SAO PAULO/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Brazil's president called on Saturday for an overhaul of the global finance system that "collapsed like a house of cards" in the credit crisis and demanded a greater say for emerging economies.

In the United States, President-elect Barack Obama said it was time for Americans to put aside their political differences to focus on averting a deep recession, which he plans to tackle as soon as he moves into the White House in January.

At the annual meeting of the G20 group of the biggest advanced and developing economies, many of the world's most powerful central bankers and government finance officials began talks on the crisis in Brazil's business capital Sao Paulo.

They are trying to prepare for an emergency summit of world leaders next weekend in Washington.

The head of the International Monetary Fund said they should find ways to stimulate their economies, including possible new interest rate cuts.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he expected central bankers in Sao Paulo, including Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank, to continue discussions about joint action to lower interest rates further.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former trade union leader, warned that millions of people risked losing their jobs, causing a rise in poverty in many emerging economies that would be the fault of rich countries.

"This crisis began in the advanced economies," Lula told the finance officials. "This is the consequence of the blind belief in the ability of self-regulation of the markets, and to a large degree, the lack of control over financial players."

On Friday, the "BRIC" nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China forged a first joint position calling for reform of institutions like the IMF to give more influence to developing economies that now represent the world's growth engine.

Countries such as export giant China and the oil-rich Gulf states have amassed trillions of dollars in reserves that could help the IMF support smaller countries to withstand the turmoil that has rocked financial markets and their currencies.

Lula, long a critic of the dominance of the United States and other developed economies in the way decisions on global finance are taken, said there was wide acceptance that the elite G7 countries were no longer capable of working alone.

"It is time for a pact between governments to build a new financial architecture for the world," he said.

Argentina's central bank president said the G20 was close to consensus on the need to increase the group's influence.

But the chances look slim of detailed plans emerging soon, not least because the outgoing administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has played down the need for big reforms.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, like many European finance ministers, did not attend the meetings in Sao Paulo.

'HIT THE GROUND RUNNING'

Obama, speaking in a U.S. radio address, said it was vital that Americans put aside the divisions of the recent election campaign "and that is particularly important at a moment when we face the most serious challenges of our lifetime."

Obama said he would waste no time to fight the crisis.

"While we must recognize that we only have one president at a time and that President Bush is the leader of our government, I want to ensure that we hit the ground running on January 20th because we don't have a moment to lose," he said.

It was not clear whether Obama would attend next weekend's summit of G20 leaders in Washington.

Some European leaders have said the summit offers a chance to lay the groundwork for big changes in the way the global financial system is run at further meetings early next year.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday that Europe backed a French-inspired ideas such as a stronger role for the IMF, surveillance of credit ratings agencies and caps on excessive risk-taking.

The White House said on Saturday it saw common ground with European leaders and agreed on the need to move quickly with some reforms but it was quiet on specifics.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said leaders coming to Washington should bring new ideas for boosting their economies through monetary and fiscal moves, while ensuring the IMF had enough funding to help countries survive the turmoil.

"There is scope for fiscal expansion in many advanced and some emerging market economies; and with inflation declining, some central banks have scope for further monetary easing," Strauss-Kahn said in a letter to the G20 heads of government.

(Additional reporting by Anna Willard, Louise Egan and Elzio Barreto in Sao Paulo and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Todd Benson and John O'Callaghan)

By Louise Egan and Deborah Charles

Publié le 08 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Reuters