President George Bush with US state secretary Condoleezza Rice (left), US treasury secretary Henry Paulson (second from left) and other G7 members in Washington on Saturday. (AFP)

Washington, Oct. 11 (Reuters): US President George W. Bush said today that the financial crisis would require a global, co-ordinated response and top industrial nations would work together to solve it quickly. He, however, cautioned that it would not be fixed overnight.

“All of us recognise that this is a serious global crisis and therefore requires a serious global response,” he told reporters after an unusual Saturday gathering with the Group of Seven economic chiefs and leaders of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The world’s rich nations have vowed to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit markets and ensure banks can raise money but they offered no specifics on a collective course of action to avert a deep global recession.

“I’m confident that the world’s major economies can overcome the challenges we face,” Bush said.

Credit markets seized up as the US housing market crumbled over the last year, which sent global stocks plummeting and forced the Bush administration to take extraordinary steps to shore up the US financial system.

Bush has insisted the $700-billion bailout package, approved a week ago by the US Congress, is adequate to address the problems but it will take time to implement.

“These extraordinary efforts are being implemented as quickly and as effectively as possible,” he said, flanked by the G7 finance ministers as well as key members of his own Cabinet, including treasury secretary Henry Paulson.

“The benefits will not be realised overnight, but as these actions take effect, they will help restore stability to our markets and confidence to our financial institutions,” Bush said. To address the credit crunch, global central banks have cut lending costs and Washington intervened to offer additional liquidity to lenders and protect more bank deposits.

The treasury department is also working on a plan to take equity stakes in financial institutions to boost their balance sheets, which have been damaged by the housing losses.

Without credit, economic growth will collapse, and investors have been looking at G7 for a comprehensive plan to get credit flowing smoothly again.

Bush urged the Group of Seven nations to continue to work in collaboration and co-ordinate their responses to help thaw the frozen credit markets, referring to the interest rate cut by central banks this week as a good example.

“As our nations confront challenges unique to our individual financial systems, we must continue to work collaboratively and ensure that our actions are coordinated,” he said.

Bush said the G7 would do what it takes to address the crisis and praised the work by the group to implement measures to get credit flowing again and ensure banks could raise money again.

“As our nations carry out this plan, we must ensure the actions of one country do not contradict or undermine the actions of another,” Bush said. “We’re in this together, we will come through it together,” he said.

The G7 finance ministers on Friday, however, stopped short of endorsing a British proposal to guarantee lending between banks as another way to get credit flowing again. The G7 is made up of the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Great Britain and Italy.