The leaders of the world's largest economies begin two days of meetings Thursday in

RELATED ARTICLES World Bank cuts China growth forecast to 8.2 per cent Govt to pay $11b for higher voting share in IMF Have to act even if inflation driven by food: RBI India gets 46th spot in global trade logistics performance: WB Economy to grow at 7.5% in FY13, says Escap report

search of a common approach to advance a fledgling economic recovery and prevent new financial meltdowns.

They face challenges, however, as they arrive with different priorities and less of an incentive to produce daring initiatives now that the global economy is slowly mending and the panic subsiding.

"Time is the enemy of reform," US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday in Washington. "As some normalcy returns to our financial system and our economy, we cannot let it be cause for complacency."

Major issues that leaders gathering here are expected to tackle include capping bankers' bonuses, overhauling financial regulation and plotting a future course for sustainable growth. The gathering, which follows G20 meetings last November in Washington and this past April in London, includes older industrial powers alo­ng with major fast-growing developing economies such as China, India and Brazil.

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will greet their guests at a dinner Thursday at Pittsburgh's Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

For some, the meeting comes at a delicate time: German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces an election at home Sunday, and Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has been in office just over a week. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), acknowledged in an interview with PBS' "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" that leaders were more amenable to working together when the world was scared.

"Will it last beyond the crisis?" he asked." "That's the big question.

Obama wants the G20 to agree to a new global fra­mework that will force cou­ntries to radically change how they manage their economies and restrain dangerous imbalances that range from massive trade surpluses in countries like China, Japan and Germany, to massive trade deficits in the countries like the United States. Mike Froman, a top economic adviser to Obama, told reporters the administration hopes world leaders will agree on a framework that can "avoid the sort of imbalances that contributed to this crisis."