PORLAMAR, Venezuela, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The two-day second summit of Africa-South America (ASA) opened on the Venezuelan resort island on Saturday with calls for concrete measures to accelerate the integration of the two regions.

In his welcoming speech, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stressed in particular the need to translate the mechanisms established at the first ASA summit in 2006 in Abuja, capital of Nigeria.

At the first summit, "two documents were approved ..., but it lacks performance. Three years later, the importance of these documents has decreased," he said.

In response, Chavez proposed to create a mechanism of round-table of presidents or their advisers, so that it can be dedicated exclusively to designing a strategic program for the ASA.

"We must give strategic vision and feasibility" to the idea of integrating South America and Africa with the structuring and implementation of a working agenda for the period 2010-2020, he said.

In addition, he proposed to create a bank of the ASA between South America and Africa,

"I already got the name of Bancasa for it. This bank could repatriate our reserves in the North to provide credit to ourselves," he said.

In his speech, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, proposed to create an organization that brings together the nations of South America and Africa.

He said the organization should be created immediately to provide a real platform in the South, which is similar to that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). "This organization could become a South Atlantic Treaty Organization," he said.

The goal is that all nations have the opportunity to participate actively in the decision-taking procedure about their development and are not subject to unilateral decisions by NATO or the Security Council of the United Nations, explained Gaddafi.

In the opinion of South African President Jacob Zuma, South-South cooperation between South America and Africa will contribute to the development of both regions.

"Our relations have great potential for success that will achieve the long waited development of our two continents," said South African President.

In this regard, Zuma has warned that a failure to take into account the link between the two regions, the global economic crisis that has affected millions of poor people around the world, will have worse consequences.

Thus, the African leader has called for forging closer ties between the two regions and a global multilateral system for the benefit of all, allowing strict control in the banking system.

In recent years, trade between the two regions has grown rapidly.

According to the calculations of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, six years ago, trade between the two regions stood at 6 billion U.S. dollars, but after the first ASA summit in2006, the amount reached 36 billion dollars. "This shows a process of strengthening our economic sovereignty," said Lula.

Lula noted that this meeting is a perfect setting to take a further step in building a partnership between two continents determined to build a bridge for dialogue and collaboration.

"That was the bold vision that brought together Africa and South America for the first time in Abuja in 2006, and it is with great pride and optimism as I see the concrete results that we are harvesting," he said.

President of the Commission of the African Union (AU) Jean Ping said on Saturday that African countries are ready to take their part in building a new model of South-South cooperation with Latin America and strengthening relations of sincere friendship, to jointly exploit the real potential of the two continents.

Representatives of 61 countries from both regions attended the summit which ends Sunday.

Under the theme "Closing the gap, opening up opportunities", the summit is aimed at boosting cooperation among the participant countries, coping with the food, financial, economic and environmental crisis, and following up agreements and plans of action adopted in the ASA Abuja summit.