Brown seeks cash for IMF as China, India feel crisis

By Matt Falloon

RIYADH (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday called for billions of dollars in extra funding for the International Monetary Fund to prop up struggling economies, while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said maintaining China's strong domestic growth was his priority.

Leaders from Mumbai to Moscow and Berlin moved to support their own economies on Saturday, with India's Reserve Bank cutting interest rates for the second time in two weeks, Russia putting 170 billion roubles ($6.4 billion) into a state bank and German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledging support for a big investment package to boost Europe's largest economy.

Brown, speaking in Riyadh, said oil-producing Gulf States and China should contribute money for the IMF to lend to countries at risk of financial collapse.

"If we are to stop the spread of the financial crisis, we need a better global insurance policy to help distressed economies," Brown said.

Chinese Premier Wen, writing in the ruling Communist Party's ideological journal, warned of growing domestic social risks from a global economic downturn.

"Against the current international financial and economic turmoil, we must must give even greater priority to maintaining our country's steady and relatively fast economic development," Wen wrote.

"We must be crystal-clear that without a certain pace of economic growth, there will be difficulties with employment, fiscal revenues and social development...and factors damaging social stability will grow."

China cut interest rates on Wednesday for the third time in six weeks to help the world's fourth-largest economy ride out the reverberations of the global financial crisis.