G-20 to supplant G-8 as international economic council

By: Zachary Pienkowski

Leaders of the G-20 economic summit will announce Friday that the group will become the new permanent council for international economic cooperation, senior U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.

The move comes in the wake of a major push by President Obama, the officials said. The G-20 will now essentially eclipse the G-8, which will continue to meet on major security issues but carry much less influence.

"It's a reflection of the world economy today and the players that make it up," said one senior official. Nations like China, Brazil and India -- which were locked out of the more elite G-8 -- will be part of the larger group.

The Group of 20 -- leaders of 20 countries representing 90 percent of the world's economic output -- are meeting in Pittsburgh for a two-day summit, focusing on the financial crisis and how to avoid a future repeat. The gathering is Obama's first time hosting a major international summit.

"We're meeting at a time where, for the first time since London, certainly for the first time in a year, we're seeing the first signs of optimism about prospects for global recovery," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters Thursday. "I think the broad consensus of private economists and businesses are that we're beginning to see growth in the United States, and around the world we see exports rising and forecasts for growth are being revised upwards."

"This is encouraging," he said, "but we have a ways to go."

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