G20 agree too early to remove stimulus - Darling

By Sumeet Desai

LONDON (Reuters) - G20 policymakers are agreed that it is too early to pull the plug on economic life-support packages as the global recovery is still fragile, Chancellor Alistair Darling told Reuters in an interview.

Darling is hosting the third meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers this year in St Andrews, Scotland later on Friday to put flesh on the bones of agreements made at a leaders' summit in Pittsburgh in September.

Since then there have been growing signs that the world is finally coming out of the deepest downturn in decades and that things may be getting back to normal after a crisis that wiped out some of the biggest financial institutions.

But Darling said it would be premature to declare victory and the extraordinary stimulus countries all around the world had thrown into their economies had to stay in place for now.

"I think we can reach agreement on firstly making sure we don't remove support too early because the recovery is by no means established everywhere," he said.

Perhaps the biggest issue for the policymakers this weekend will be the launch of a new framework to ensure better and balanced growth in the future and prevent a rerun of the crisis which has cast millions out of work globally.

"Just as there was a consensus that we took action over the last year to stave off a serious downturn, there is a consensus that we can work together so that the next decade is one of growth and one of job creation," Darling said.

"The key of course this weekend is how we do that but I am confident that people are willing to engage in that argument."