NEW YORK, Mar. 23, 2009 (Kyodo News International) -- A panel of experts set up by the United Nations has proposed creating a Global Economic Council tasked with promoting worldwide economic and financial cooperation, according to a draft panel report obtained by Kyodo News on Monday.

Faced with the rapid spread of financial crisis, the international trade and financial system needs to be ''profoundly'' reformed to meet the needs and changed conditions of the 21st century, the panel said in the report, adding that the proposed council should be at a level equivalent with the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Stressing the need for a global response to the financial crisis, the panel said the approach ''must encompass more than the G-7 (Group of Seven industrial powers) or G-8 (the G-7 plus Russia) or G-20 (of developed and developing countries), but the representatives of the entire planet, from the G-192.''

Set up last October and headed by Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University and Nobel laureate in economics, the Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System made the proposal as it notes that reforms proposed by the Financial Stability Forum, which consists of G-7 financial authorities and other concerns, ''have not been sufficient to avoid major global financial instability.''

The proposed Global Economic Council should ''help set the agenda for global economic and financial reforms'' and work together with all important global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Labor Organization, the panel said.

Proposals by the panel, which also include creating international bodies for financial regulations and competition policies, will be discussed at a G-20 financial summit to be held in London on April 2.

The panel will work out a final report in April after its draft document is taken up by the U.N. General Assembly later this week.