US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner intended to stay until early next year to help US President Barack Obama ink a deal with Republicans during the looming fiscal negotiations, the White House said on Friday.

"Geithner has indicated that he will stay on through inauguration and he will be, obviously, a key participant in the negotiations around the so-called fiscal cliff issues," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a regular press briefing.

Geithner has said he planned to step down if Obama was reelected, after helping Obama cope with the worst financial crisis in decades.

Unless US Congress acts by the end of this year, a combination of tax hikes and sweeping spending cuts, dubbed as the "fiscal cliff" and with the combined amount of about 600 billion U. S. dollars, was set to kick in. Democrats and Republicans locked horns over how to reduce the nation's public debt hovering at 16.2 trillion dollars and tide over the "fiscal cliff."