BUSAN, South Korea — Finance officials from leading advanced and emerging countries began talks today on reshaping the global economic system to prevent debilitating crises like the one that took the world to the brink of a depression in 2008.

The European sovereign debt crisis, which has triggered slides in global financial markets and the euro, is overshadowing longer term efforts to reform banking regulation and set up financial safety nets for countries emerging from crisis.

The Group of 20 was founded in 1999 and shot into the limelight in late 2008 as the key international forum for managing the global financial system as countries grappled with the crisis brought on by the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The gathering brings together rich countries like the United States, Japan and Germany, emerging powers like China and developing economies Indonesia and South Africa, which have demanded and gained more say.

Ministers will be looking to shore up confidence in the markets and in the $1 trillion bailout plan for ailing European economies.