PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Leaders of the G-20 economic summit will announce Friday that the group will become the new permanent council for international economic cooperation, senior U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says signs of optimism for a global economic recovery can be seen.
The move comes in the wake of a major push by President Obama, the officials said. The G-20 will now essentially eclipse the G-8, which will continue to meet on major security issues but carry much less influence.
"It's a reflection of the world economy today and the players that make it up," said one senior official. Nations like China, Brazil and India -- which were locked out of the more elite G-8 -- will be part of the larger group.
The Group of 20 -- leaders of 20 countries representing 90 percent of the world's economic output -- are meeting in Don't Miss
One of the key goals is preventing such a crisis from occurring in the future, he said.
"In the run-up to this crisis, many of the world's largest economies depended on the American consumer to buy their exports to drive growth, and we made it easy; for too long, Americans were buying too much and saving too little,"
Among the protesters was a group of several hundred wearing T-shirts reading, "G20: Free Tibet Before Free Trade." The crowd marched about eight blocks before police blocked their path. Officers allowed the protesters to chant in the street for more than an hour before they walked away. There were no arrests.
Others chanted pro-marijuana slogans behind the riot police, and another group took up the stadium chant of "Let's go Steelers."
CNN's Steve Brusk and Ed Henry contributed to this report.
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