Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez welcomed Professor Joseph Stiglitz on Wednesday in his office at Miraflores presidential palace.

Stiglitz, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001, is presently on visit in Venezuela to take part in a forum on "Strategies for emerging markets."

Chávez and Stiglitz exchanged ideas and views on the situation of economics, funding agencies, global markets and the behavior of global pointers, among others, state-run news agency ABN reported.

Minister of Finance Rodrigo Cabezas and chair of Banco Venezuela, Michell J. Goguikian attended the meeting.

Stiglitz, born in the United States in 1943, is a renowned economist, author and critic of international lending organizations.