Rio de Janeiro  - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev started Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro a two-day official visit to Brazil that includes a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

According to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, Lula and Medvedev were set to discuss current bilateral projects during their meeting Wednesday.

They planned to analyse "the expansion of reciprocal investment, including Russia's interest in taking part in infrastructure projects in Brazil in the areas of railways, hydroelectric plants, nuclear energy and gas and oil pipelines."

The Brazilian government underlined that both countries have major economic and trade cooperation projects, and also collaborate in the fields of agriculture, energy, space and science and technology. Bilateral trade is rising continuously.

"Between January and October 2008, the commercial flow surpassed the figure of 7.3 billion dollars. For 2010, Brazil and Russia have set themselves a goal of 10 billion dollars for their trade volume," the Brazilian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Medvedev arrived in Rio de Janeiro late Monday from Lima, where he took part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, in a Latin American tour that is also set to take him to Venezuela and Cuba.

According to Brazilian analysts, the South American country's government hopes to negotiate with Medvedev a greater opening of the Russian market to meat produced in Brazil, while the Russian leader hopes to sell weapons to his hosts.

The official programme of the visit started Tuesday, with a symbolic tribute to Brazilians killed in World War II.

Later, Medvedev went to the headquarters of the state-owned oil firm Petrobras to negotiate cooperation projects relative to natural gas, oil and biofuels.

He was expected to have lunch with Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral, before meeting Lula for dinner and again Wednesday.

Some 2,000 members of the Brazilian Armed Forces were deployed in several neighbourhoods of Rio in order to guarantee the security of the Russian leader, who is set to leave Brazil Wednesday for Caracas. (dpa)