British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Saturday that financial protectionism is a greater danger than trade protectionism in the current global economic crisis.

Cooperation between major powers and global financial institutions is vital to ensure a continued flow of credit to developing and smaller countries, which are likely to be the biggest victims of the recession, Brown told the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009.

"There is an implicit protectionism in what is happening now," he declared, referring to measure taken by several countries to restrict government funding from bolstering endangered banks to national financial institutions and bar overseas operations from benefiting.

This is leading to the withdrawal of capital from these institutions' foreign operations, the British prime minister said.

"If this continues, what you will see is a form of financial protectionism ... financial isolationism," Brown added.

He said developing countries, likely to suffer most in the global crisis because of their weak domestic financial sector, are already seeing a dramatic loss of capital.

Brown said there is a risk of trade protectionism -- the imposition of heavy tariffs and other barriers to imports of foreign goods, but the bigger problem is financial protectionism.

(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2009)