Fiscal adjustment and positive growth prospects are crucial to solving the public debt problems in advanced economies, experts said Saturday at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The soaring public debt in developed countries has caused global concerns, as the public debt-to-GDP ratio in advanced economies exceeded 100 percent in 2011, compared with about 75 percent in 2007, according to IMF chief Christine Lagarde.

At a seminar on public debt and financial stability, Mexico's central bank governor Augustin Carstens said: "It was crucial to adopt credible and comprehensive measures to consolidate fiscal accounts, to recapitalize troubled financial institutions and to repair the private sector's financial positions."

Experts said policymakers face the challenging task of balancing a number of imperatives to boost market confidence and rescue the economy.

First, they need to stick to fiscal consolidation as a midterm mandate and an approach to increase the odds of sustainable growth.

Second, they must put more efforts on growth-friendly policies in the face of economic downturn risks.

Third, they need to keep public spending afloat through inclusive development, such as by working on social security programs and payment transfer especially in the middle of a crisis.

"Fiscal policies therefore have to be renewed in purpose and scope," said Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore's finance minister and chairman of the International Monetary and Finance Committee, the IMF's policy-setting body.

"The most important task must be to sustain social mobility by improving the breadth and quality of opportunities for young people, and to help workers develop the skills and expertise that keep them in demand in a global market," he said.

Global policymakers said they face unprecedented uncertainties in making fiscal policies, as the recent global economic crisis and its aftermath have "upended" traditional political wisdom and economic orthodoxes.

However, they believed that restoring confidence is the key to breaking the adverse feedback loop between low economic growth, fiscal crisis and financial fragility.