G8 nations consider exit from credit crisis

By Anna Willard and David Lawder

LECCE, Italy (Reuters) - The world's rich nations, heartened by signs the credit crisis is easing, have started to consider how to unwind rescue steps for their economies once recovery is certain, their finance ministers said on Saturday.

Meeting in southern Italy, the ministers described their economies in the most positive terms since the collapse of Lehman Brothers nine months ago ushered in the world's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"The force of the economic storm is receding. There are encouraging signs of stabilization across many economies," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as finance ministers of the Group of Eight nations ended two-day talks.

A surge in long-term government bond yields over the past several weeks shows financial markets fear huge sums of money poured into economies through drastic stimulus will ultimately fuel inflation and cripple state finances.

But ministers clearly differed over how quickly the world should start rolling back huge state spending plans and hiking interest rates. And there was continued disagreement over other aspects of the crisis, especially testing the health of banks.

The meeting's final joint statement said they had asked the International Monetary Fund to help them analyze possible ways of ending economic stimulus policies.

A G8 source, who declined to be named, told Reuters that the IMF report would probably be presented at the fund's October annual meeting in Istanbul. Most private sector economists do not expect any major tightening of fiscal and monetary policies in the developed world before next year.

NO EARLY EXIT

Pressure has been building in the G8, particularly from fiscally conservative nations such as Germany and Canada, for plans to wind down stimulus as soon as it is no longer needed -- "exit strategies" that would prevent market interest rates from climbing high enough to threaten economic recovery.

The communique stressed there would be no immediate end to stimulus, noting unemployment might continue rising even if production began picking up. "While the economic outlook is improving, the situation remains uncertain," it said.

Geithner indicated the United States was unlikely to tighten policy any time soon: "It is too early to shift toward policy restraint."

Underlining the precariousness of any economic recovery, data released as the meeting began on Friday showed euro zone industrial production shrank by more than a fifth in April, dropping faster than markets had expected.

The debate over stimulus is diplomatically sensitive because if some countries roll back their programmes earlier than others, they may be accused of not doing their fair share to ensure a global recovery.

Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin described the meeting as "stormy," featuring heated debate on what stage of the crisis the world had reached.

BANK STRESS