This year's Rome MED - Mediterranean Dialogues Conference - whose participants include over 40 world leaders and some 1,000 business people - kicks off on Thursday, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Foreign minister Luigi Di Maio will open the three-day conference which centres on four themes: prosperity, security, migration, civil society and culture, according to the foreign ministry.
Italy's prime minster Giuseppe Conte is set to make concluding remarks to the conference on Saturday.
Representatives of more than 55 countries are taking part in the event, among them heads of state and government, ministers, senior officials and representatives of the major international organisations, scholars and experts.
Discussions will centre on the region's main crises especially Libya and Syria, the challenges posed by current transition processes and geopolitical tensions between the various regional players, said the foreign ministry.
Terrorism and the security threat still posed by the Islamic State jihadist group will also be a focus of the conference, as will the issues of migration , climate change, energy, technology and regional investment.
Conference participants include Idriss Deby Itno, president of Chad, Joseph Muscat, prime minister of Malta, and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, Qatar's deputy premier and foreign minister, according to a foreign ministry list.
Many foreign ministers are attending the event including Mohammad Javadì Zarif (Iran), Sameh Shoukry (Egypt), Sergey Lavrov (Russia), Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (India), Mevlut Cavusoglu (Turkey) and Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalfia (Bahrain).
European Union economic affairs commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, United Nations special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, UN special envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame and Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman are also due to participate in the conference, the foreign ministry said.
Rome’s Grand Hotel Parco dei Principi will host the fifth edition of the conference promoted since 2015 by the foreign ministry and by Italy's Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) thank-tank.
