MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) - The international community will continue to need the G20 for some time in the future, as the G8 format struggles to cope with the ongoing global credit crunch, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"With respect to the eight states [of the G8], the format lacks a number of countries, such as China and other nations who are not represented at this negotiating table, this is why we are unlikely to abandon the G20 format in the next few years," Medvedev told a meeting of the Valdai Discussing Club in Moscow.

The next summit of the world's 20 largest economies will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24-25.

The Russian president said he expected practical decisions from the upcoming G20 meeting.

"As for the agenda for the Pittsburgh summit, it is a serious agenda, and we would like to move further," Medvedev said, urging a transfer from general statements on the threats posed by the crisis to the adoption of specific decisions.

He said it was too early to speak about an end to the current global economic crisis.

"I think we do not have the right either inside the country or on the international arena to say that the crisis is over," Medvedev said, warning that the world could find itself in a difficult situation should a new crisis emerge in a year or two.

"I suggest all my colleagues, the countries from the G20 think how to make the work flow more intensively," the Russian president said, referring to the adoption of new international legal regulations.