LONDON - BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday that the oil-rich Middle East has a key role to play in tackling the world economic downturn.

Mr Brown left on Saturday for a four-day visit of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE for talks to try to bolster the international funding pot available to countries struggling amid the global credit crisis.

The British leader wants China and Middle Eastern countries to be among the biggest donors to an expanded International Monetary Fund, but analysts warn money will only be forthcoming if regional leaders get more power in any new world economic order.

Mr Brown, who was being accompanied by two senior ministers and a delegation of 27 senior business executives, also planned to call on the Gulf nations to work to stabilise oil prices.

'Everybody has got a part to play in solving the world downturn. I think the oil rich states will want to play their part,' Mr Brown told reporters as he left London. He said it is in no-one's interest to have 'volatility' in oil prices.

Mr Brown has called on China and the Middle East to use their reserves to boost the IMF after it dipped into its reserves fund to provide emergency loans to Iceland, Hungary and the Ukraine worth more than US$30 billion (S$44.5 billion).

Pakistan earlier this week said it will ask the international body for funds within two weeks if it cannot secure US$5 billion from other sources.

Both Mr Brown and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have said that the IMF's US$250 billion reserve fund will not be enough for future bailouts.

'My main focus is how we can help British families through this downturn, but because these are global problems they require global solutions,' Mr Brown said.

'The Saudis and other countries in the Gulf states are very important, they are the countries with great revenues and oil wealth.'

Mr Brown has been joined for the visit by Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and a delegation of executives, including BP CEO Tony Hayward, Lloyd's chairman Peter Levene, Royal Dutch Shell executive director Malcom Brinded and BAE Systems chairman Dick Olver.

The trip comes before a meeting of world leaders in Washington D.C. on Nov 15 to discuss ways to shore up the global economy.

Analysts suggest China and the Gulf will demand a transfer of political power from West to East if they agree to use their significant foreign exchange reserves to boost the IMF, which is dominated by the United States and the G-7 group of industrialised nations.

China, for example, has US$1.9 trillion to hand, compared with US$213 billion for the eurozone as a whole, according to the IMF. Saudi Arabia has US$33.3 billion while OPEC members, which produce around 40 per cent of the world's crude oil, have US$519 billion.

'Ultimately, power will transfer from the West to the East. The Middle East understands that they have the whip hand and they need to be wooed,' said Mr Jeremy Batstone-Carr, head of research at the Charles Stanley investment firm in London.

Mr Brown has already drawn the ire of some leaders in the region for criticising Opec's decision to cut oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day in a bid to shore up prices.

The drop in the price of oil that spurred the production cut - crude has fallen from a record US$147.27 a barrel on Jul 11 to below US$60 this week, before rebounding slightly Friday to around US$67 - could give Gulf states a public excuse for not contributing to a bailout package.

Opec Secretary-General Abdullah El-Badri said it was 'surprising' that the cartel's member countries were being asked to step in.

'This crisis created in the (United) States must be solved within the States,' he told the same gathering, in contrast to Mr Brown's repeated statements that the current financial turmoil was a global problem that required global solutions. -- AP