This will include strengthening standards of integrity, propriety and transparency for economic activities.”

“We emphasize the need for an enhanced global framework for financial regulation and supervision, promoting consistency between accounting and prudential standards,” and ensuring “comprehensive oversight of all systemically significant entities and activities.”

The leaders of the eight countries - the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy - will meet with the leaders of emerging economies on Thursday.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who will be taking part in the meeting along with the other Group of Five nations - China, India, Brazil, and South Africa - said the rich nations must avoid protectionism and improve global access to credit to help other countries out of the crisis.

"We are worried about the channeling of resources to restore international credit, especially in developing countries where credit and investment were particularly hard hit by the crisis," he told reporters.

The G8 declaration also reaffirmed commitments taken at the G20 summit in April to “take all necessary steps to support demand, restore growth and maintain financial stability, including strengthening financial regulation and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and maintaining open markets worldwide.’

The leaders highlighted the importance of “efforts to combat tax fraud and tax evasion… especially given the extraordinary fiscal measures adopted to stabilise the world economy and the need to ensure that economic activity is conducted in a fair and transparent manner.”