G20 ministers agree to keep stimulus programmes going until full recovery

The G-20 finance ministers have agreed to keep the stimulus packages intact until the economy reels back  to normalcy, sources close to the talks said.

However, certain issues like new controls to curb bankers' pay and bonuses still remain a bone of content between the European nations and the US.

Speaking at the summit, Britain's prime minister Gordon Brown warned that the world's tentative recovery from the downturn would be at risk if they repeated the mistakes of the 1930s and withdrew fiscal stimulus packages too soon.

He warned against "complacency or overconfidence" about the prospects for a swift return to sustainable economic growth.

Noting that less than half of the promised $5 trillion in fiscal stimulus has so far been delivered, Brown told the summit that countries should co-ordinate their "exit strategy" from recession, which must be put into action only when recovery is firmly in place.

Brown claimed the fiscal stimulus programmes of increased public spending and tax cuts had prevented the world's economies plunging into depression on the scale of the 1930s and must be sustained into 2010.

''It is clear in my view that too early a withdrawal of vital support could undermine the tentative signs of recovery we are now seeing and lead to a further downward lurch in business and consumer confidence, reducing growth and employment and worsening governments' debt problems over the longer term,'' he added.