Brazil to offer Cuba aid during Castro visit

BRASILIA, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Brazil will offer Cuba financial aid for industry, energy and infrastructure projects during a December visit by communist President Raul Castro, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

"We'll discuss the production of buses, building roads, as well as oil investments," Marco Aurelio Garcia, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's foreign policy adviser, told Reuters.

Brazil's state development bank, BNDES, was looking at ways to finance the projects, despite the global financial crisis, he said.

"There's always money to export services," Garcia said in reference to a government line of credit to export Brazilian goods and services.

Castro will participate in a summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Salvador on Dec. 16 and subsequently visit the capital Brasilia.

"He is coming, it's confirmed," Garcia said.

Castro said on Wednesday he would soon visit Venezuela, the communist-run island's main trade partner, in what would be his first overseas trip since assuming power from his brother Fidel Castro.

Castro didn't say when the trip would be.

Socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who supplies Cuba with cheap oil, said on Tuesday Castro would visit the OPEC nation in the next few days.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Eric Beech)