United front needed

The Group of Twenty (G20) summit on financial markets and the world economy held in Washington marked an important first step toward restoring global growth and achieving needed reforms in the world's financial systems.

Expectations about the summit's outcome had been understandably tempered due to the severity of the global financial crisis.

However, the consensus G20 leaders reached on the urgency to take strong actions and conduct significant reforms does give a huge and much-needed boost to our confidence to effectively stave off a deep global recession.