UPDATE 3-Venezuela waves off default fears on IMF pullout

(Adds details, minister comments)

By Alonso Soto

QUITO, May 3 (Reuters) - Venezuela on Thursday reiterated it planned to leave the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, despite investor concerns over a possible technical debt default the withdrawal may trigger.

Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas told Reuters in Quito, Ecuador, that he was confident bondholders would not ask for a swift debt payback and said Venezuela would honor all its foreign obligations despite separating from the lenders.

"We don't believe that there will be any circumstances that will take us to an acceleration of payments," Cabezas said after a regional meeting of finance ministers.

"There is no possibility that Venezuela will stop paying its foreign obligations," he said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has promised to implement a socialist revolution to counter U.S. influence, this week said he would pull out of the World Bank and IMF, which he blasts as pawns of U.S. imperialism.

The left-wing leader, a former soldier, on Thursday repeated that his country did not need the IMF as he seeks to create an alternative banking cooperation program with like-minded allies in the region.

"The decision of the president has already been announced about the withdrawal from these two multilateral bodies who belong to the capitalism of old," Cabezas said.