LONDON - PRIME Minister Gordon Brown urged world governments on Friday to follow Britain in its 'ground-breaking' moves to shore up the banking system, as officials from the G7 richest nations prepared to meet.

In an article in The Times newspaper, the premier called on other countries to put money into struggling banks and guarantee inter-bank loans, as Britain did this week in a multi-billion-pound rescue package.

US authorities are already eyeing the possibility of direct capital injections to troubled banks. This would, as in Britain, give the government special bank shares in exchange for helping boost badly needed capital.

Mr Brown said he would never have imagined he would have to offer to part-nationalise Britain's banks but said 'these new times require new ideas'.

'The old solutions of yesterday will not serve us well for the challenges of today and tomorrow. So we must leave behind outworn dogmas and embrace new solutions,' he wrote.

He said policies in each country 'will need to be suited to its particular circumstances", but urged cooperation 'based on the British approach'.

'Because this is a global problem, it requires a global solution,' he said.

Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven (G7) rich countries are meeting in Washington Friday, while the ministers will head to the White House Saturday for talks with US President George W. Bush and the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Mr Brown said he hoped these meetings would culminate in a 'leaders meeting in which we must lay down the principles and the new policies for restructuring our banking and financial system all around the globe'.

He called on governments to adopt new international rules for transparency and codes of conduct to guard against 'irresponsible risk-taking", as well as a new system of cross-border supervisors to cope with international cash flows.

Mr Brown this week wrote to European Union leaders setting out his rescue package and urging them to follow, especially on inter-bank lending, 'an area where a concerted international approach could have a very powerful effect'. -- AFP