Finance ministers from the G20 group of rich industrialised nations have agreed on a plan for identifying countries whose policies could put the global economy at risk, if left unchecked.
The ministers - meeting in Washington - agreed on a system for measuring the types of dangerous imbalances widely believed to have contributed to global financial downturn.
All members of the G20 will be monitored under the new system, the BBC reports.
It includes looking at public and private debt levels, savings rates and trade imbalances.
Countries that account for more than 5% of total G20 economic output will be subject to a second stage of analysis.
They include the US, China, Japan, Germany and France.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who chaired the G20 meeting, said the analysis would be more stringent for countries considered of strategic importance because of the relative size of their economies.
The G20 made no mention of any "name and shame" list which would identify those members in the most risky positions, the BBC said.
