Global collaboration crucial

"We call on the World Bank Group and the IMF to continue identifying policies and instruments" to best assist in preventing and responding to future crises, reduce the risks to growth and increase prospects for a sustainable recovery, urged the committee.

"If countries collaborate with each other, there are great benefits for the global economy, in terms of recovery, gross domestic product (GDP) growth and employment creation," Anoop Singh, director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the IMF, told Xinhua on Saturday.

"We have modest global growth. But as Friday's release of U.S. payroll numbers showed, this growth is not strong enough to make significant inroads into high unemployment, particularly in developed countries," World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said Saturday here at a press conference.

"World collaboration to cope with global challenges is critical. We are moving into a world of multi-polar growth, with developing countries becoming an increasingly important engine for global growth," Zoellick said on Friday.

"Working together is a win-win" practice, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Friday, adding that the world faces severe challenges from spiking public debts, sagging job markets in some advanced economies, pressing financial sector reforms and a decreasing global willingness to tide over the economic downturn in joint hands currently.

The committee said it would commit to step up efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, with a stronger focus on results.

"There is a danger that countries will turn inward and as a result international cooperation could falter. This could be dangerous. Multilateral institutions need to matter," added Zoellick.

The key committee meetings of the two Washington-based institutions concluded Saturday as the autumn annual meetings entered its second day. The committee's next meeting is scheduled to take place on April 17, 2011 in Washington, DC.

The autumn annual meetings are scheduled to run in Washington D.C. from Oct. 8 to 10.