Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has described the world leaders gathering in Davos for the World Economic Forum representing a "world that is dying".

Chavez was speaking at the anti-globalization World Social Forum (WSF) currently underway in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belem.

The WSF has developed in this decade as a counter balance to the economic forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

Chavez said the event in Belem was "where a new world, a new era is being born" at a time when the globe grapples with the widening economic crisis.

"While the world that is dying is meeting in Davos, the world that is being born is meeting here," Chavez said.

Chavez was at the WSF with presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was also in Belem Thursday, and was to meet his Latin American counterparts, but did not participate in any public events.

About 120,000 people from 150 countries were expected to take part in the forum's 2,600 activities.

The WSF was born in 2001 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, where it was held also in 2002, 2003 and 2005.

India hosted it in 2004, while Venezuela did so in 2006 and Kenya in 2007. In 2008 there was no one single site, but the forum was held simultaneously in 82 different countries.

SG/HAR