An unprecedented level of cooperation between nations will be needed to recover from the economic downturn, Gordon Brown has said.

Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry?s (CBI) annual dinner, Mr Brown said it would take far more international partnership than he had believed necessary even when the G20 Summit convened in London to discuss the economic crisis last month.

The Prime Minister, who was speaking without notes, added that the Government will continue its efforts to keep the economy moving, and appealed to businesses to work with them.

He said:

?We will now need a level of economic cooperation between nations if we are to solve these problems that are unprecedented – far more than I thought a year ago, more than even I thought in April? We will not and must not relax our efforts to move this economy through the downturn back to a period of growth.?

The Prime Minister said he was confident Britain would pull through the downturn and take advantage of a world economy that would double in the next 20 years, praising the country?s ?dynamism, enterprise and talent?.

He told business leaders that they were owed a ?debt of gratitude? for the resilience they were showing in the face of recession.

Commenting on the announcement in the Budget that the top rate of tax would be raised to 50 per cent, Mr Brown said it was not a step he would have wished to take, but it was necessary to help restore public finances.