Leading and emerging nations will commit this week to pursuing responsible economic policies that do not hurt each other's prospects with protectionism or currency devaluations, according to a draft G20 statement.

The G20 group is due to meet in London on Thursday to discuss the next steps to tackle a crisis that has brought about the collapse of major financial institutions and huge job losses after credit dried up.

The draft communique, obtained by Reuters ahead of the summit, listed G20 promises to boost International Monetary Fund resources, multilateral development banks and trade finance, but left blank spaces on specific spending pledges and outlined no specific fiscal stimulus plans.

We commit to conduct our economic policies responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and to refrain from competitive devaluation of our currencies, it said.

Officials have sought in recent days to downplay expectations for the summit, with British finance minister Alistair Darling saying no specific spending pledges are likely and saying the world's problems cannot be fixed in one day.

The draft communique -- dated March 26, 2009 -- said the G20 would need to meet again before the year end, and Brown's spokesman stressed the London summit was part of a process rather than an end in itself: It is a process that is nearer to its beginning than to its end, he said.

Brown said on Monday that world leaders were making progress toward agreements on how to deal with the financial crisis.

We are prepared to do whatever is necessary to restore the world economy to the growth it needs, Brown said after talks with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The discussions ... will show results...by the time we get to Thursday.

Brown is desperate to hail the summit a success, but faces a tough task to pull together a consensus, particularly with European nations warning against further fiscal stimulus steps.

Weekend news of bailouts of British and Spanish financial institutions had also put financial markets back on edge ahead of the summit, following a more optimistic couple of weeks for global stock markets.

While we are hopeful that the meeting will offer some new global thinking, we are cognizant of the limitations of the scope of the G20 to soothe all the current concerns, U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs wrote in a client note.

GROWTH HOPE

Brown has just returned from a whistle-stop trip to France, the United States and Latin America where he sought to gain backing for coordinated G20 action.

Writing in London's Evening Standard newspaper on Monday, he said global trade, better financial regulation and the creation of growth and jobs would be the key issues of the summit.

On trade -- the lifeblood of the global economy -- we must agree to keep markets open and reject protectionism in any form, he wrote.

And we will need action now to jump-start world trade by helping businesses export through...providing more than $100 billion of extra resources to help finance exports.

The world's major economies are forecast to contract this year, the first time they have shrunk since World War Two.

The draft statement included a description of the monetary and fiscal measures already taken, and said the G20's objective was that they would enable the global economy to expand by the end of 2010. An X marked the spot outlining by how much.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday that the restoration of credit and fighting the drug of protectionism were the most urgent problems facing G20 leaders.

In a column in France's Le Monde newspaper, Lula said protectionism could cause temporary euphoria but would lead to a deep depression in the longer term.

Brown repeated his previous calls for the IMF's resources to be boosted to allow it to help drive growth in emerging economies. Brown has said the IMF needs to at least double its resources to $500 billion dollars.

The so-called BRIC club of large emerging economies -- which comprises Brazil, Russia, India and China -- said they intended to reach agreement with other nations at the G20 on a single common position and would not issue a separate statement.

Both Brown and Rudd, who was in London for bilateral talks ahead of the summit, stressed the unprecedented extent and nature of action already taken -- saying governments and agreed to some $2.5 trillion of fiscal stimulus in recent months.

We have before in modern economic history have governments of the leading economies cooperated so closely on so grave an economic crisis, Rudd told the news conference.

United kingdom Alistair Darling G20