Brazil's Lula mulls new spending plan - minister

SAO PAULO, July 28 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may implement new infrastructure investments for his expected successor to try to perpetuate his ambitious $344 billion, four-year Growth Acceleration Plan, the country's planning minister was quoted on Tuesday as saying.

Lula will order state development bank BNDES to seek foreign investors interested in financing or participating in a pool of infrastructure projects to be undertaken from 2010 onward, Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo told O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper in an interview.

The opposition says the PAC, as the plan is known, is a political tool to get Lula's Chief of Staff, Dilma Rousseff, elected as his successor in 2010. Rousseff manages the plan.

Bernardo played down concerns the so-called PAC II could be seen as a political instrument. "We are conscious that most projects won't be finalized in this term," he told Estado.

Bernardo told Estado that among alternatives to fund PAC II is the creation of private equity funds to raise money for the projects.

The Lula administration may soon start analyzing some projects and requesting environmental licenses for some of them, Bernardo told Estado.

The PAC was launched in January 2007 by Lula as a way to end structural bottlenecks in areas such as roads, ports and airport infrastructure that make Brazilian exports less competitive than those of other emerging market economies.

Bernardo also told Estado he favors pumping capital into state-controlled power utility Eletrobras (ELET6.SA).

The government will streamline management and revamp the company's structure before excluding Eletrobras' investment budget from the federal government's primary budget surplus, Estado said, citing Bernardo.

State companies are obliged to pay dividends to the federal government, which sets them aside in the form of the surplus and uses them to repay the national debt. (Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by James Dalgleish)