World leaders have set out the first steps toward withdrawing emergency support for the global economy even though they warned that the crisis was not over. On the eve of Friday’s meeting of G20 finance ministers to prepare for a summit on financial regulation later this month, the US, UK, France and Germany called for work to start “on exit strategies to be implemented in a co-ordinated manner as soon as the crisis is over”.

Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said finance ministers should start to spell out how the “very successful policy response” to the economic crisis could be reversed. Speaking at the US Treasury before flying to London to meet his counterparts from the Group of 20 nations, Mr Geithner said these exit strategies were “very important to [the] confidence” of the financial markets. The London meeting will be followed by a summit in Pittsburgh, hosted by President Barack Obama, on September 24-25.