DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--The Group of 20 industrial and developing nations meeting in Washington Saturday should make restoring global economic growth and stimulating employment its top priority, India-based global conglomerate Hinduja Group Chairman Srichand P Hinduja said Thursday.

G20 leaders meet in Washington, D.C. Saturday for the emergency economic summit.

"It is only through the unified action of global leaders that we will be able to avert the deepening of the financial crisis and also ensure that the common man does not endure economic hardship," he told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview Thursday.

Hinduja Group has global investments in investment banking and trade automotive, banking and finance, energy and chemicals and media and real estate. These include truckmaker Ashok Leyland Ltd. (500477.BY ) and Gulf Oil Corp. (506480.BY).

Hinduja said the meeting of global leaders provides an opportunity to devise global structures and mechanisms to protect economies and stock markets from collapsing.

However, he said: "the summit must ensure that countries and trading blocks - in particular the U.S.. - don't erect protective tariff barriers around themselves.

"As India's economic progress has demonstrated, easing the restrictions on a closed economy opens the door to economic growth and prosperity."

The G20 summit is one of the first steps in rebuilding confidence in the global financial system, Hinduja said.

"The test of the summit's success will be the extent to which it can act."

Improved regulation of markets, the recapitalisation of banks by governments and soverign wealth funds in such a way as not to allow the banks to repeat the same mistakes are some of the issues that the G20 will need to tackle, he said.

There will be no quick remedy for the crisis, it will take time, "We think between three to five years and also a lot of hard work, but the world economy will undoubtedly be stronger as a result," Hinduja said.