Finance officials from the world’s top economic powers have endorsed a plan aimed at preventing another financial crisis like the credit and mortgage debacles that erupted in the United States and quickly sent tremors around the globe.

The Group of Seven countries, in a joint statement, said Friday, “The global economy continues to face a difficult period.”

The plan seeks to increase the openness, or transparency, of financial markets and to sharpen regulators’ response to urgent financial problems. Besides the United States, the other members of the G7 are Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The world’s leading economic figures took seats at the epicenter of U.S. political power Friday to explore how best to prevent another financial crisis like the credit and mortgage debacles that sent tremors around the globe.

Risks to the United States and the global economy have intensified since finance officials from the Group of Seven countries last gathered here in October. Many economists now believe the United States has fallen into a recession and that the odds of a worldwide downturn have risen sharply _ to one in four _ according to the International Monetary Fund, a global financial firefighting institution.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hosted Friday’s G7 discussions, where officials were expected to consider a plan that would seek to increase the openness, or transparency, of financial markets and to sharpen financial regulators’ response to such quick-hitting problems.

Those talks, involving the top finance ministers of Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, got under way in the afternoon and were preceding the weekend meetings of the 185-nation IMF and the World Bank.

Before the meeting began, Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters he believed that each country should undertake suitable measures to extinguish financial fires when they erupt around the globe.

In the United States, where credit troubles sprang forth with a vengeance last August and quickly spread financial turmoil worldwide, the damage is sorely felt. Foreclosures have surged to record highs, job losses in the first three months of this year have neared the staggering quarter-million mark and financial companies have racked up billions of dollars in losses. The once mighty Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest investment bank in the United States, crashed, prompting a takeover by JP Morgan in a controversial deal backed by the Fed.

Worldwide financial losses could approach $1 trillion over two years, the IMF said earlier this week.

Bernanke said the “financial distress we’re seeing now is among the most severe episodes of the postwar era.” However, the Fed chief _ a student of the Great Depression in this country _ said the current experience is not anything “remotely like” that.

The plan the G7 officials were working on was developed by the Financial Stability Forum, a group that includes central bankers and major financial regulators from around the world. The panel is headed by Mario Draghi, chief of Italy’s central bank, who was presenting his group’s findings to the other G-7 officials during their closed-door meeting.

David McCormick, the Treasury Department’s pointperson on international affairs, said that Draghi’s report will include more than 65 recommendations designed to make financial markets less secretive and improve supervision, which in theory would help prevent a repeat of the current financial debacles.

One suggestion is to have banks, securities firms and other financial institutions disclose their holdings of risky securities such as those backed by subprime mortgages given to people with tarnished credit. Those subprime mortgages, which soured with the collapse of the U.S. housing market, were at the heart of the U.S crisis.

Another suggestion involves improving the operation of credit rating agencies, which have been criticized for contributing to the problems by not accurately assigning risk to mortgage-backed investments. Another recommendation involves strengthening supervisors’ guidance to banks for dealing with cash crunches.

Asked whether there would be a coordinated action by the G7 to use public money to provide relief, McCormick, earlier this week said, “we are not at all certain that would make sense.”

Soaring oil prices, meanwhile, also are complicating the global outlook.

In the United States, high energy prices are acting as a double-edged sword: they are causing people to spend less on other things, thus adding another drag on growth. And, they increase the risks of an inflation flare-up as other companies boost their prices in response. U.S. gasoline prices are marching toward $4 a gallon.

Another issue likely to crop up during Friday’s discussions is the big drop in the value of the U.S. dollar, which has fallen in recent months to record lows against the euro and has fallen sharply against Japan’s yen.

Ongoing efforts by the U.S., backed by the G7, to prod China to let its currency rise in value also will be discussed. China’s undervalued currency has been blamed for contributing to the United States’ swollen trade deficit and the loss of millions of factory jobs. Progress has been made on the China currency front, but officials say more needs to be done.

The G-7 finance officials had a dinner scheduled for Friday night that was to include executives of some of the world’s biggest financial companies. The idea: look at the causes and consequences of the recent financial turmoil. Officials invited to those talks included top executives of Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley.