Obama welcomes planned global financial summit

By Deborah Charles

RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday welcomed a plan for President George W. Bush to host a financial summit, saying global coordination was needed to tackle the economic turmoil.

"I am happy today that the White House announced a summit that provides an opportunity to advance the kind of cooperation I called for last month. America must lead and other nations must be part of the solution too," Obama told reporters after meeting his team of national security advisers.

Obama had called for a globally coordinated response to stabilizing credit markets on September 19.

Announcing the summit at a news conference, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it would look at the causes of the financial meltdown and seek consensus on regulatory reforms of the financial sector.

The summit will take place just 11 days after the November 4 U.S. presidential election and Perino said the White House would seek input from the winner, either Obama or his Republican rival John McCain.

Obama would not be drawn into saying what role he would play at the summit if he is elected president but stressed that his economic team was in constant contact with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

"Even though the election will have taken place and there will be a new president-elect, we are still going to have one president at a time until January 20, until the new president is sworn in," Obama said.

Bush has invited leaders of the G20, which includes the Group of Seven major industrial economies plus key emerging market countries like China, India and Brazil.

Obama said the issues facing the leaders would be too complex to resolve in a single meeting.

"What we are going to have to make some decisions about is how do we set up some rules of the road, how do we set up a regulatory framework, some of which may be very formalized, some which might just be better communication and coordination," he said.

(Writing by Ross Colvin; Editing by John O'Callaghan)