Billionaire stock picker George Soros has urged the G20 governments meeting in London this week to commit to increasing support of emerging market countries, which have not been able to offer the same hefty bailout packages being used to stabilise developed economies in the financial crisis.

In a hastily arranged lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science, yesterday afternoon, Soros said: "This G20 meeting is a very important one, and it is sort of hovering on a knife edge between success and failure."