Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has called on the Middle East to embrace globalisation in order to shore up the region's economy.

The Arab World in particular has been afflicted with an economic malaise

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Speaking at the Dubai Strategy Forum, the Prince said that networking and alliances were the only way for the region to prosper.

"It is obvious that self-sufficiency has become an obsolete notion and the future holds greater promise for those who believe in, and adopt, networking," he added.

He said that Africa and the Middle East alone had ignored the globalisation trend, and that their economies had suffered greatly as a result.

Affliction

"The Arab World in particular has been afflicted with an economic malaise that can at best generate anaemic growth," he said.

The UN's latest Arab human development report suggested that real per capita income between 1975 and 1998 grew at just 0.5%.

Furthermore, the Middle East's share of global trade is stagnant.

The Prince reminded delegates that the region had fallen into an "appalling economic state" despite its former prominence as a trading partner.

"My own view is that having lost our linkages and networks with others was one of the major contributory factors to our economic decline," he said.

Need to diversify

Many Middle Eastern states are heavily dependent on oil revenues.

But increased production from other parts of the world, such as Africa, the former Soviet Union and South America, has reduced the region's income.

And attempts to diversify away from oil has only seen limited success.

Prince Alwaleed is ranked by Forbes Magazine as the world's 11th richest man with a personal fortune of $20bn (�12.8bn).