Libya's official news agency Jana said Gaddafi made the remarks late on Tuesday to an audience of "African citizens and African leaders" ahead of a summit of the 53-nation African Union in Addis Ababa this week.

"If Africa practiced racism or wanted to sacrifice its future, Libya would then be able to scrap its current investment in Africa and move it to the Mediterranean region," Gaddafi, who is expected to attend the summit, was quoted as saying.

Jana said the investments were worth about $5 billion.

Independent observers say the remark on racism may refer to Gaddafi's stated desire for a greater role for Arabic speakers in the senior ranks of the AU's Ethiopian-based secretariat.

Gaddafi's comment on Africa's future appears to refer to his longheld view that a federal African government could meet the challenges of globalisation, fight poverty and resolve conflicts on the continent without interference from the West.

Gaddafi considers that without a central government a rift could open between Africa's culturally Arab north and the sub-Saharan south, a development he could see as carrying racial overtones, watchers of Libyan diplomacy in Africa say.

Gaddafi lobbied hard for a United States of Africa during an African Union (AU) summit in Ghana last July but the meeting ended with only an agreement to study how it might be created.

All 53 AU member countries agree with the goal of African integration but some, led by South Africa, a leading power on the continent, say it must be a gradual process.

"If past experiences of evasiveness and equivocations were to be repeated in Addis Abeba, so strategic dangers hitting Africa would be possible," Gaddafi was quoted as saying.

"And it would be possible that the Sahara would be the dividing line of the continent into white and black Africa, with North Africa, headed by Libya, linking its future to Europe," he said.

Gaddafi said Libya's state investment portfolio in Africa included $1 billion provided by Libya's National Oil Corporation, $1 billion by the Libyan Investment Company in Africa and $500 million in telecommunications ventures.

"This money is invested by Libya in Africa not to be given to Africans for free, but for a return to Libyans," he added.

"If we invest $5 or $10 billion in the Mediterranean region we would be the most influential state on the Mediterranean area or in the Arab world or in Europe," Gaddafi said.