Chavez confirms June visit to Brazil

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed Tuesday that he will visit Brazil on June 6 after a knee injury forced him to cancel a scheduled trip in early May, Brazil's official news agency reported.

Chavez made the confirmation during a telephone conversation with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

This will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Rousseff took office in January.

The visit will serve to reinforce the good relations between the two countries, which were intensified during the government of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and are expected to be maintained with the same intensity during Rousseff's government.

The leaders will review the main topics of the bilateral agenda, with emphasis on bilateral trade, the evolution of cooperation programs in the areas of agriculture, regional development, popular housing, universal banking services and the Orinoco-Amazon integration.

One of the highlights of the meeting should be the issue of the oil refinery "Abreu e Lima," which is being built in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The project is orginally considered as a joint enterprise, but Venezuela had not made financial contributions so far to it.

Another issue is the planned expansion of cooperation in the energy area as Venezuela faces electricity shortage.

In 2010, trade between Brazil and Venezuela amounted to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, with Brazil exporting 3.8 billion dollars to the neighbor.

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