Lula sees Brazil economy growing 5 pct in 2010-FT

LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is confident Brazil's economy will grow by 5 percent in 2010 and expects foreign reserves to reach $300 billion soon, he told the Financial Times in an interview published on Monday.

The FT, without giving a direct quote from Lula on his expectation for Brazil's economic growth in 2010, said he was confident that the economy will grow by a more than healthy 5 percent next year.

"Not long ago I used to dream of accumulating $100 billion in foreign reserves," the paper reported Lula as saying. "Soon we will have $300 billion."

Brazil's economy emerged from a brief recession in 2009. It has been expanding by around 5 percent in recent years.

"We were one of the last countries to go into the global crisis and we have been one of the first to come out," he told the FT. (Reporting by Alex Lawler; Editing by Bernard Orr)