L’AQUILA, July 9 (RIA Novosti) – Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations agreed to take joint measures to restore economic growth, improve financial supervision, and prevent tax fraud at their summit in Italy.

In a joint declaration released on Wednesday evening after the first day of meetings in the quake-hit town of L’Aquila, the leaders said: “We will continue to work together to restore confidence and set growth on a more robust, green, inclusive and sustainable path. This will include strengthening standards of integrity, propriety and transparency for economic activities.”

“We emphasize the need for an enhanced global framework for financial regulation and supervision, promoting consistency between accounting and prudential standards,” and ensuring “comprehensive oversight of all systemically significant entities and activities.”

The leaders of the eight countries - the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy - will meet with the leaders of emerging economies on Thursday.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who will be taking part in the meeting along with the other Group of Five nations - China, India, Brazil, and South Africa - said the rich nations must avoid protectionism and improve global access to credit to help other countries out of the crisis.

"We are worried about the channeling of resources to restore international credit, especially in developing countries where credit and investment were particularly hard hit by the crisis," he told reporters.

The G8 declaration also reaffirmed commitments taken at the G20 summit in April to “take all necessary steps to support demand, restore growth and maintain financial stability, including strengthening financial regulation and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and maintaining open markets worldwide.’

The leaders highlighted the importance of “efforts to combat tax fraud and tax evasion… especially given the extraordinary fiscal measures adopted to stabilise the world economy and the need to ensure that economic activity is conducted in a fair and transparent manner.”