Statesmen from Latin America and the Caribbean are arriving Monday to this north-eastern Brazilian city, to analyze a regional agenda, without the direct look of the United States and Europe.

Integration and development, in moments of a world crisis, are basic issues of this meeting, the first with marked absence of Washington and the inclusion of Cuba, so the Organization of American States is out of the forum.

Without having as immediate purpose to create a new mechanism, the meeting in Costa de Sauipe, close to this city, also include Spain, Portugal and Andorra, but with the participation of the Caribbean nations.

The total of tools and regional integrationist institutions will attend the forum, among them MERCOSUR, UNASUR, the Group of Rio and CARICOM.

Also participating is the Central American Integration System, with emergent force of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America and its Petrocaribe mechanism.

Host President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has clarified that participants will do it on behalf of their countries, despite the coincidence of MERCOSUR, UNASUR and Group of Rio summits.

Principles of solidarity and cooperation, according to the project of the final document to which Prensa Latina had access, stand out among the main statements of the Bahia summit.

The First Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean will take place in Costa de Sauipe Conferece Center, 47 miles of this city.