Decisive rich nation action needed on crisis: G24

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Developing countries on Friday called for "decisive" policy actions by rich industrial nations to ensure financial turmoil originating in the United States did not spread and cause their economies to falter.

The Group of 24, which brings together developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, also called on the International Monetary Fund to "urgently" improve its monitoring of the United States and other advanced economies.

So far, emerging economies have been mostly unscathed by the crisis, which sprang out of U.S. subprime mortgage problems and spread to western Europe, but they said they worried it could further slow global growth and tighten credit markets.

A G24 communique also called on rich industrial nations to provide the poorest countries with extra aid to deal with spillovers from the financial crisis and mounting pressures from rising food prices.

Such assistance should be in addition to -- and not part of -- aid already promised by donor nations to help poor countries tackle poverty and disease, the G24 said after their semi-annual meeting on the sidelines of the IMF and G7 gathering in Washington.

"To face increasing prices for food, donors and bilateral entities should increase support for affected countries," Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, central bank chief for the Democratic Republic of Congo and chair of the G24, told a news conference.

"We should also take this opportunity, the opportunity of the increase in food prices, to obtain decreases in custom tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products and thus relaunch Doha (trade talks)," Mulongo added.

The G24 called on the IMF to help cushion economies from the impact of the subprime loan crisis and related financial troubles and said the fund "needs to urgently" improve its surveillance of advanced economies.