Brown, whose Labour government is expected to lose a general election due by mid-2010, unveiled his "new growth strategy" at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

David Cameron, the leader of the main opposition Conservatives expected win the election, meanwhile called for "urgent action" to repair Britain's battered public finances, as he too addressed business chiefs.

The CBI, Britain's biggest employers' body, is focusing this year on how businesses can best recover from the country's longest recession on record.

Brown on Monday looked to Asia, and China in particular, to lend Britain a boost.

"Over a very, very short period of time, more than 400 companies have come to Britain from China," Brown told CBI delegates.

"In our new growth strategy, I want not hundreds but thousands of of Chinese companies in Britain, but also British companies in China.

"And we will soon sign new strategic partnerships with India. Trade relations with the US are strong," Brown told the event, which the CBI has billed 'Routes to Recovery'.

"To go for growth in Britain we must also go for growth in Europe," he said, adding that the region accounted for 50 percent of the country's trade.

The PM also announced an international London investment conference to be held early next year.

"We should have confidence that together we can and we will establish Britain's place at the centre of this global economy," he added.

Britain is the last major world power still mired in recession, after the eurozone, France, Germany, Japan and the United States all emerged from a steep global economic downturn.

"These have been the most testing times for British businesses," Brown told the conference, adding that a total of 38 million jobs will be axed by companies around the world this year.

"The global financial crisis led to a global trade crisis and then a global industry and jobs crisis," he added.

Brown also spoke of his plans to nurse public finances back to health after they were ravaged by recession and a series of expensive banking bailouts.

"The most important driver of deficit reduction over the period ahead will be the growth performance of our economy, and the speed with which we can get unemployment down," Brown said.

"As we take measures to halve the (public) deficit over the next four years, we will continue to make the necessary investment in growth and skills."

British finance minister Alistair Darling will outline further plans to cut the deficit in a budget announcement on December 9, Brown added.

But Tory leader Cameron blasted the prime minister over the issue in a separate speech to the CBI.

"Today there is a growing international and domestic consensus that urgent action (on repairing public finances) is vital to recovery," Cameron told delegates.

He added: "We are at the end of the longest and deepest recession since the war, we face the largest public deficit in our peacetime history, unemployment is at two and a half million.

"We cannot go on like this. This is the last time that I will get to speak to the CBI before Britain goes to the polls.

"If the Conseratives win that election, our time in office will be judged on whether we get Britain out of this mess."

Earlier on Monday, International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the CBI that although the worst of the global financial storm had passed, the world economy remained "highly vulnerable."

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