British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is leading a high-level business and ministerial delegation to Gulf Arab states seeking investment, help on oil prices and funding for the IMF to help vulnerable economies through the credit crisis.
Mr Brown says the IMF needs hundreds of billions of dollars and cash-rich states need to play their part. However, government aides say there is unlikely to be any firm commitment from Saudi Arabia this weekend.
'That's why the prime minister spending hours talking one on one with the king of Saudi Arabia is so important,' Mr Mandelson told reporters.
'They're getting each other on to the same page of analysis and agreed response and Saudi Arabia's active participation in getting the world through this first financial crisis of the global age - but that's a process not an event.'
Mr Brown has said he wants global leaders to reform international policymaking institutions to give more power in decision making to emerging economies such as China, India and the Gulf states.
Movement on that reform at a global crisis meeting by heads of state in Washington in November could entice more help from nations such as Saudi Arabia and China to help shore up the global economy.
'I very much hope you and other Gulf states will be willing to contribute, with other countries, to join efforts to stop the financial crisis spreading by helping to boost the IMF fund for distressed economies,' Mr Brown told a business audience.
Some analysts believe the global credit crisis could bring about a shift in power towards fast-expanding economies such as China as older developed nations repair their banking systems and try to stave off deep recessions.
Mr Brown said cooperation on getting the world economy through the financial crisis could create 'in its wake a new global order - fairer, more stable and offering greater prosperity for all'. -- REUTERS