Comments from officials at IMF/World Bank meetings

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following are quotes from world finance officials attending spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers, meeting ahead of the weekend IMF/World Bank meetings, on Friday said economic activity should begin to recover later this year. However, they said the outlook remained weak and there was a risk that the global economy may still worsen.

IMF CHIEF DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN ON 2010 STIMULUS:

"It depends a lot (on) the effectiveness of the stimulus of 2009. It's difficult to define what will be the need for 2010 before having an assessment on the result of what is done in 2009. In turn, it depends on the effort that will be made on the cleansing of the (bank) balance sheets. If what we ask... on the side of the banking sector is done, then the result of the stimulus in 2009 will be very big. And then probably what is already forecast as a stimulus for 2010 may be enough. In other cases, it will need more."

STRAUSS-KAHN ON DISAGREEMENTS ON TIMING OF EXIT STRATEGY:

"Unfortunately, it is not the Europeans on one side and the Americans on the other. That would be too easy."

"It is not so much a different strategy, it is a different appreciation of the urgency. Those who think that things are improving, and finally we have more green lights than red lights, they say it is time to think about exit strategy. Some others, more concerned by the depth of the crisis today, say OK, certainly we need to talk about exit strategy, but first let's talk about what has to be done today."

IMF'S JOHN LIPSKY ON IMF ESTIMATES OF BANK LOSSES

"Those figures refer to write-downs of assets. At the same time, banks are making profits on their current incomes. So the whole picture is much more complex to come up with a figure of what the implication is for the results of the actual banks, what they might need for recapitalization etc. What we were estimating was the write-downs from existing assets, which will be compensated, at least in part, by other activities of the bank".