Berlin  - The Group of Eight (G8), the world's most powerful economies, are hoping to agree next week on a plan to forge a new global financial order, despite signs of tensions between G8 members on regulating markets in the wake of the world economic crisis.

Faced with a dramatic contraction in their national economies this year, the G8 leaders are likely to sign off on a set of new far-reaching regulatory measures drawn up in April at a summit in London of the Group of 20 (G20) leading industrial and emerging nations.

"How to prevent an economic crisis occurring in the future is likely to be a major item on the G8 agenda," said Rainer Guntermann, senior European economist with the investment house Dresdner Kleinwort.

This is likely to include ensuring that the global economic response to the current downturn does not fuel future crises through governments loading up their debt levels or promoting economic protection, including moves to undercut their currencies' performance on foreign exchange markets.

However, building up economic defences to head off future crises is also likely to mean the G8 endorsing the G20 measures, which are aimed at bolstering key financial international institutions as well as extending the world regulatory system to include controversial investment areas such as hedge funds and tax havens.

But apart from raising questions about the G8's role in dealing with critical global financial issues, the problem for G8 leaders meeting in the earthquake-hit Italian town of L'Aquila will now be establishing a common international approach to policing global markets.

Since the G20 gathering in London, several governments, notably in the US, Japan and in Europe, have released their own plans for regulating their markets along with reshaping their banking systems.

That risks undercutting the drive to create a global approach to financial market supervision.

In the meantime, the global recession has also served to highlight the crucial role played by the world's powerhouse emerging economies such as China and Brazil in driving world economic growth and stemming the downward spiral in the world economy.

As a consequence, the G8 summit in L'Aquila is likely to mark a shift in global economic power, with analysts already doubting whether the G8 is really the most appropriate body for finally forging a new set of global market rules.

"I am not sure that the G8 is the ultimate platform to solve everything," said Guntermann.

This is especially the case when another meeting of the G20 has already been set down for September in the US city of Pittsburgh.

The G8, which includes along with this year's host Italy, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Japan, has for some time recognized the growing economic clout of the world's top emerging economies.

After expanding the Group of Seven (G7) to take in Russia in 1997, the leaders of nations such as Mexico, Brazil, China and India now attend if not fully participate in the G8 annual summits.

But despite representing about 65 per cent of the gross world product, the rather exclusive G8 club now risks being eclipsed by the G20, which includes the world's leading emerging nations at its top decision-making table.

More to the point, the G20 has been the major global forum in piecing together a plan of action for dealing with what has been the world's biggest economic downturn in more than sixty years.

And as a sign of their new economic confidence, emerging states have seized on the chance presented by the current economic and financial crisis to press for an overhaul of the global economic system.

That could undercut the dominant role played in the world economy by the US and the dollar as well as leading industrialized states.

In a key step towards forging a cohesive bloc, the leaders of the major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC states) held their first summit in Russia.

Moves are already under way to beef up the role of emerging economies on key international organizations to bring their governing bodies into line with the economic firepower exercised by the BRIC nations. (dpa)