South American and Arab leaders have been meeting since Tuesday in Riad in a two-day summit aimed at strengthening ties between these two regions geographically distant but economically powerful.
It is expected to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to be present during the opening of the IV Summit of Heads of State and Government of South American and Arab Countries (ASPA), which starts at 1600 GMT.
Saudi state television broadcast the arrival of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose country is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world.
It also goes to the appointment Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, the smallest member of OPEC. It was not clear at this stage whether there will be other Latin American heads of state.
Among the Arab representatives will attend the Sudanese head of state Omar al Bashir, Egyptian Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, and Fuad Masum Iraq and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, media reported.
Maduro announced last week that it will use the event to insist on his proposal to set a band for oil prices and added that he has been coordinating with OPEC members, such as Ecuador, Iran and Algeria, and other non-OPEC, "that This proposal is welcomed. "
Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, OPEC has tried -of which is founder-member cut production, Saudi Arabia has rejected as Riad prefer to try to saturate the market and lowering prices affect the economies that produce greater cost shale oil, and the United States.
This summit brings together 22 Arab and 12 South American countries will be the fourth since its inception in 2005.
Such summit was the initiative of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country hosted the first meeting.
- Growing trade -
Before the start of the summit, the secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil al-Arabi told the Kuwaiti agency Kuna that "trade between the two currently 30,000 million dollars, a sum regions where no more than 6,000 million in 2005".
Peru, which hosted the third summit of Arab and South American countries in 2012, became last October, with Chile and Mexico in one of the 12 Pacific countries sealed an agreement to create the largest free trade area in the world promoted by the United States and Japan, the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP).
Saudi columnist, Abdulateef al-Mulhim, claimed Monday that Arab and South American regions can contribute together to bring prosperity and stability in the world.
"The whole continent (South America) is it progressing significantly thanks to modern and outstanding reforms in the political, economic, social and educational fields" he wrote.
For its part, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al Jubeir spoke of "convergence of positions" between the countries of both regions, and referred in particular to the "positive attitude" of Latin America in the Palestinian question.
AFP