Gordon Brown's visit to Latin America to prepare for an ambitious agreement at next Thursday's London Summit has begun in Brazil with backing from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for international action to tackle the global crisis.

After a meeting in Brasilia, the country's capital, on Thursday the two leaders issued a joint statement describing the G20 summit as a 'vital opportunity'. They pledged to work together to stabilise economies, restore conditions for growth, avoid a retreat towards protectionism and set the course for a green recovery.

At a press conference after the meeting, the UK Prime Minister said he would urge the G20 members to back a $100bn expansion of trade finance to reverse a slide in world trade.

President Lula said the global economic crisis would worsen if the G20 meeting in London failed to come up with concrete initiatives to bolster the world economy.

The joint statement signed by Mr Brown and President Lula said the London Summit would be an opportunity to take international action to:

• restore global demand through concerted and co-ordinated fiscal and monetary policy action;
• help stabilise the international financial system and secure a sustainable economic recovery - in this regard they agreed that rebuilding confidence in major financial institutions in key financial markets is a priority and that adequate government actions to achieve it, such as dealing with impaired assets, bank recapitalisation and liquidity support may be a core part of the solution; they also agreed that continued public sector action, fiscal and monetary policy, will play a decisive role in promoting demand and jobs;
• set in train fundamental reforms to strengthen regulation of the financial sector to prevent future crises - they agreed that all financial institutions, markets and instruments must be subject to appropriate regulation and supervision, and that this requires strengthened international co-operation;
• support emerging and developing countries to deal with and overcome the sudden reversal of international capital flows - they agreed this will require urgent mobilisation of International Financial Institutions’ resources and liquidity to finance countercyclical policies and projects in areas such as infrastructure, trade finance and social programmes. The IMF and the World Bank must introduce new and enhanced instruments, including the development of a new high-access, quick-disbursement precautionary facility, with a new more flexible approach to conditionality;
• take concrete steps to accelerate the reform of the international financial institutions - they agreed that governance structures should fully reflect new relative weights in the world economy, and thus greater representation of emerging and developing economies.

After his meeting with President Lula, Mr Brown will move on to Saõ Paulo for a meeting with business leaders. Tomorrow, the last leg of his three-continent journey takes the UK Prime Minister to Santiago in Chile for a Progressive Governance Conference. Hosted by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the conference brings together leading international politicians to discuss future political trends after the global crisis. Mr Brown will meet the Chilean President and other world leaders before his return to the UK.

Latin America's response to the global financial crisis will be on the agenda of the 50th anniversary meeting of the governors of the Inter-American Development Bank in Medellin, Colombia on Sunday and Monday.

The meeting coincides with the 24th annual meeting of the Inter-American Investment Corporation, and will be part of several days of activities that will bring together finance ministers and central bank governors from the region, as well as high-level officials and personalities from further afield.