Rio de Janeiro  - The first meeting between US President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is to focus on biofuels, the global financial crisis and US ties with Latin America in general and with Venezuela in particular.

The two leaders could also tackle the issue of an American-born child whose US father wants him back from Brazil.

The two leaders are to meet Saturday at the White House in Washington. Lula's invitation as the first Latin American leader at the White House was seen as a gesture of the importance of relations between the South American giant and the new US administration.

"I am worried about one thing, which is reestablishing credit in the world. Today, that is the main problem. Money disappeared. What I want to discuss with President Obama, very sincerely, is how to reestablish international credit," Lula said Friday, shortly before leaving for Washington.

His top foreign policy advisor, Marco Aurelio Garcia, said the two would use their first meeting to build "coordinated action" in the G20 summit April 2 in London, where industrialized and developing nations are to continue urgent dialogue on the global recession.

Lula, who is also going to London, wants industrialized countries to help protect the world's poorest economies from the severe turbulence that started in the developed world.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stressed that US prosperity requires that other countries in the Americas be prosperous too.

"And how do you do that? I guess one way would be to avoid protectionist measures. Concluding the Doha Round (of trade talks) without imposing excessive demands is another way," Amorim said.

US government advisors say cooperation in biofuels launched by former US president George W Bush is also an Obama priority.

Obama's economic recovery package devotes 15 billion dollars a year to develop a new generation of clean energy technologies, to spur the labour market, reduce US dependency on imported oil and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

"If the United States wants to diversify its energy matrix, we have the recipe: remove barriers on (Brazilian) ethanol imports," Amorim noted.

Lula is also keen on convincing Obama to change US perceptions of Latin America.

"We are a democratic and peaceful continent, and the United States has to look at us through 'developmentalist' eyes, not just thinking of drug trafficking and organized crime," Lula said.

In this context, Lula said he will ask Obama to be a "partner" in making the region economically stronger.

Lula is likely to mediate tensions between Washington and Venezuela, whose relations deteriorated under Bush. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave Lula green light to discuss the issue with Obama.

The US embargo on Cuba is not on the Lula-Obama agenda.

"Neither the United States nor Cuba asked us to mediate," Marco Aurelio Garcia noted.

However, Amorim admitted that a reference to the issue would be "inevitable."

"The United States' relations with Cuba are anomalous," he stressed.

Lula and Obama are also likely to discuss the situation of an 8- year-old boy who lives in Brazil with his stepfather against the wishes of his father, a US citizen.

The boy's Brazilian mother took the young Sean to Brazil after splitting with her husband, a US citizen, four years ago. She refused to return, got a divorce and remarried. The legal wrangling started five months later. However, it got worse when the woman died during childbirth in late 2007.

Sean has since been in the custody of his Brazilian stepfather.

A New Jersey court has ruled in favour of his father but a Brazilian court has granted custody to his stepfather.

US officials have said that Obama has been briefed on the subject.

"We've made it very clear that, from our point of view, this is a case that falls within the purview of the Hague Convention and that Sean Goldman should be returned to his father," Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon said. "The government of Brazil believes the same thing and has said so publicly."

Following his meeting with Obama, Lula to travel to New York, where he is to deliver a lecture before US businessmen Monday, on economic opportunities for foreign private investment in Brazil.