BEIJING - SEEKING a common approach to the global financial turmoil, Asian and European leaders called for new rules guiding the global economy and a leading role for the International Monetary Fund in aiding crisis-stricken countries.

VIDEO Economic crisis tops Asem talks (1:24)

The 43 nations participating in the Asia-Europe Meeting summit reconvened for a second day of meetings in China's capital on Saturday, a day after adopting a statement calling on the IMF and similar institutions to help stabilise struggling banks and shore up flagging share prices.

'Leaders agreed that the IMF should play a critical role in assisting countries seriously affected by the crisis, upon their request,' the statement said.

The leaders also agreed to 'undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems', the statement said.

The document is one of the strongest endorsements yet for a leading role in the crisis for the Washington-based IMF, long known as the international lender of last resort, and appears to mark a step toward an Asian-European consensus ahead of next month's crisis summit of the 20 largest economies in Washington.

Countries as varied as Hungary, Ukraine, Iceland and Pakistan have already turned to the IMF for help bridging their liquidity crunches.

On Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Asian and European nations need to take a unified front to the Washington meeting.

'Europe would like Asia to support our efforts and would like to make sure that on the 15th of November we can face the world together and say that the causes of this unprecedented crisis will never be able to happen again,' Mr Sarkozy said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the meeting on Saturday that the IMF must become a 'guard for the stability of the international finance system', and that there was unanimous agreement that the body needed to take on a supervisory role.

She also called for the step-by-step integration of the IMF into the Financial Stability Forum, founded in 1999 by the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries and aimed at bolstering the international financial system.

The IMF, whose loans normally include strict provisions, is discussing loan packages with close to a dozen countries and is examining ways to speed up the process.

In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned on Friday of a global recession and a serious hit to emerging economies, calling for 'drastic' measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world's poorest states.

The UN chief said the era of self-regulation among the biggest banks and other money-lending institutions had ended, and he pledged to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture.

The Beijing gathering, known as Asem, is held every two years but has no mandate to issue decisions and participants differ widely on their views toward international cooperation and intervention by global bodies. Free-trading Singapore and economic powerhouse Germany are attending, along with isolated, impoverished Myanmar and landlocked, authoritarian Laos.

Responses to the crisis have so far varied. While the 15 euro countries and Britain have agreed to put up a total of US$2.3 trillion (S$3.5 trillion) in guarantees and emergency aid to help banks, South Korea, China, Japan and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations have merely recommitted themselves to an US$80 billion emergency fund to help those facing liquidity problems - to be established by next June.

Asian financial systems had less direct exposure to the toxic sub-prime mortgages that are wreaking havoc on US and European markets, but their export-driven economies are expected to take a major hit from a drop in exports and foreign investment.

Asian stock markets were among the biggest losers on Friday in a worldwide plunge in share prices. -- AP