CARACAS — Hugo Chavez and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will sign cooperation deals worth at least two billion dollars on oil and power generation, the Venezuelan president said.

"We are going to sign a package of agreements following what Lula was talking about in Caracas: speeding up the pace" of cooperation on Wednesday, Chavez said in a meeting of his cabinet broadcast on VTV state television.

The leaders will sign one pact worth two billion dollars to build in northeastern Venezuela a petrochemical plant to process polypropylene with Brazil's Brasquen, Chavez said.

He and Lula will sign other agreements on electricity -- as Venezuela confronts lingering shortages -- as well as finance, farming, and cars.

"The political relationship that we have consolidated has been a victory for both of us," Chavez argued in the meeting.

The two will meet at a series of regular direct talks, which they have been taking turns holding in each country.

Chavez also meanwhile took sides in Brazil's upcoming presidential vote.

He said he hoped Lula's ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff, whom he called a "friend," would win. With Lula's leftist Workers Party, she would be Brazil's first woman president.

"The Brazilian people will decide who they want to elect but one has one's little opinion," Chavez joked, noting "there is a nice friendship between us."

Rousseff has been running second in opinion polls behind social democrat Jose Serra leading up to the October vote.

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