Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund is considering opportunities in renewable energy, including potential investments in Italy, the fund's managing director and an Italian minister said on Tuesday.

'It (the Kuwait Investment Authority) will not hesitate in investing in this new sector if the viability of these investments and long-term returns were proved,' Kuwait's state news agency Kuna said citing KIA managing director Bader al-Saad. He did not elaborate.

Saad is in Rome to meet Italian government officials and executives from companies including power producer Enel  and Finmeccanica, Kuna said.

Italy's foreign minister, who met Saad on Tuesday, said the KIA was keen on investing in Italy and was eyeing opportunities in energy and infrastructure.

'There's big interest in investing in Italy. We're finalising the sectors with energy and infrastructure in the first place, and this is the first step of an important contact with the Kuwaiti fund and other Gulf sovereign funds,' Franco Frattini said.

Enel has said it would sell a 30 to 49 percent stake in its green energy unit via a private placement or a stock market listing. Investors, including Libya's sovereign wealth fund, infrastructure funds and private equity funds, have already expressed an interest.

Enel had no comment on the report of the Kuwait meeting. Italy will have to double its renewable energy capacity and invest 50 billion euros ($73.3 billion) to meet the European Union's climate change targets for 2020, the chairman of its renewable energy body told Reuters on Monday.

'The global crisis ... has created opportunities for us that were not available in the past,' Saad said. The KIA has not stopped investing despite the global financial crisis and still sees 'promising' opportunities in the services, financial and real estate sectors which were affected by the economic downturn, he added.

The KIA, which manages state assets in the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, is investing across asset classes around the globe.

It has come under fire from some parliamentarians for investing $5 billion in U.S. banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch last year before both stocks nosedived. Merrill has since been bought by Bank of America.

The KIA was managing foreign assets worth about 49 billion dinars ($170.9 billion) at December 31, two lawmakers said in February after a government briefing.

Since October 2008, the KIA has reduced the exposure of its key Future Generation fund to global equity markets, shifting assets to cash funds, the government said in January.

In May, Kuwait's Finance Minister Mustapha al-Shamali told Reuters the Gulf state was not reducing its dollar assets and was keeping some liquid assets to meet its budget requirements.-Reuters