Chancellor's letter to G20 members

(Reuters) - The government on Wednesday called for more stringent market regulation, setting out its agenda for April's G20 summit in London when world leaders will come together to tackle the worst financial crisis in living memory.

Following is the text of the letter from Chancellor Alistair Darling to the G20.

UK Objectives for the G20 in 2009

The November 2008 meeting of G20 Leaders and Finance Ministers in Washington brought together advanced and emerging economies to determine how to address the global financial and economic crisis affecting us all.

Leaders agreed that urgent action was needed to make significant progress on the macroeconomic, regulatory and institutional reform agendas. As we head towards the next Summit on 2 April work is already underway by our officials who are working closely with experts and representatives of the relevant international institutions.

I am very keen that we make real progress on these particular issues for the deputies meeting at the end of January so that proposals are sufficiently developed to inform our Ministerial ahead of the Summit, which I intend to hold on 14 March.

Given the ongoing turmoil in the world's financial markets and the related macroeconomic challenges that we now all face, I would particularly like to focus our efforts on reinforcing international cooperation in the areas of financial market regulation and supervision.

All members of the G20 have recognised that the financial system has failed in a number of key respects. Financial markets have been in turmoil globally, in some cases ceasing to function.

Individual financial institutions have failed across the world. Other institutions have needed to turn to taxpayers to guarantee their liabilities, to provide liquidity and capital.