WASHINGTON: The Group of Seven industrialised countries is outmoded and should be replaced with a new entity that would include rising economies in Asia and Latin America, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Monday.

He said the financial crises roiling markets in the United States and Europe are an alarm for the world and demonstrate the need for a broader-based system to handle them. “The G-7 is not working,’’ he said. “We need a better group for a different time. For financial and economic cooperation, we should consider a new steering group, including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa and the current G-7,” he added. The G-7 brings together the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. When Russia joins the group for political discussions, it becomes the G-8.

Speaking before weekend meetings of the bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, Zoellick said the new group would not be a G-14.“We will not create a new world simply by remaking the old,’’ he said. “It should be numberless, flexible, and over time, it could evolve” to fit changing circumstances, including new emerging powers, while serving as a network for frequent interaction.

“We need a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy,” Zoellick said in a speech to the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, referring to the social networking site.

“These rising powers need to be heard,’’ he said. “They want to know what their role will be in making the new rules for the global economy. Having demonstrated their competitive success, these rising powers are suspicious that the more established stakeholders will hold them back, whether through old rules of trade and finance or new rules for climate change and the environment,” he added.

Zoellick said the IMF and the World Bank and perhaps the World Trade Organization could help support the new group by identifying emerging problems, supplying analyses, suggesting solutions and drawing on “our own broader membership to propose coalitions to address issues.’’

Zoellick, a former US diplomat, trade negotiator and business executive, said economic multilateralism needs to be redefined beyond its traditional focus on trade and finance. He said energy, climate change and stabilizing fragile and post-conflict states are economic issues and not just part of the global dialogue on security and development.

“Deceleration of growth and deteriorating financing conditions will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies,’’ he said.“As is always the case, the most poor are the most defenceless,” he added.

Referring to the US election in November, he said the next president will have to move beyond “the fire fight of stabilization” to address the economic aftermath. “Whoever wins the White House should work with others in modernizing the multilateral system as there needs to be a greater shared responsibility for the health and effective functioning of today’s global economy,’’ Zoellick said.