Saudi Arabia hosted the first Economic Forum and Arab Cooperation with Central Asia and Azerbaijan in its capital Riyadh.

The two-day event which started on Tuesday (May 13) aims to boost cooperation between the Arab countries and Azerbaijan in economic, political and cultural fields.

The forum was attended by Arab Ministers of Foreign Affairs, finance and economy ministers from Central Asia, representatives of Azerbaijan as well as the Secretary- General of the Arab League, Nabil El-Araby.

The idea of starting the event came from El-Araby and aims to strengthen cooperation between the participating countries.

Arab League, Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan signed a number of economic and investment agreements during the forum.

"What supports the cooperation (Arab and Central Asia countries) is signing a number of agreements whether it is the agreement of double taxation or the protection and promotion of investments. The Saudi Fund for Development, as well as the Islamic Development Bank have significant activity in each of these countries. This aspect of development cooperation leads to the increase of economic cooperation in general," said Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf.

Saudi Arabia's economy can achieve growth of 4.4 percent in 2014, in line with a forecast by the International Monetary Fund, the central bank governor said last month.

The kingdom's actual government budget spending rose by a modest 6 percent in 2012 and by the same rate in 2013 after a jump of over 26 percent in 2011, when the Gulf monarchy boosted social handouts at a time of Middle East unrest.

In addition to focusing on economic relations between the participating countries, Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saudi al-Faisal addressed the subject of Syria, saying that not enough has been done to end the conflict there.

"As to the Syrian crisis, in every country, war has an end, but this is the fourth year of war in Syria and nothing has happened. This is the biggest humanitarian crisis in recent history yet there hasn't been enough efforts to solve it. And we can only depend on our own abilities (to do so)," he said.

More than 150,000 people have so far been killed in the Syrian conflict. Some 2.5 million people have fled abroad, while 9 million people inside the country need help - including nearly 3.5 million who have no access to essential goods and services.

Syria's seat remained empty at the forum.