CARACAS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Venezuela's new President Hugo Chavez was expected to meet with International Monetary Fund officials and Houston oil company executives when he visits the United States later this month, presidential palace sources said on Friday.
The visit builds on a pledge made by Venezuela's new leader in his inaugural speech on Tuesday to pull the world's second-largest oil exporter out of a deep economic crisis caused by a slump in oil prices.
Latin America's fourth largest economy has been ravaged by the worst oil price crash in 12 years. The state is virtually broke, with a bulging fiscal deficit estimated at 9 percent of gross domestic product, or $9 billion. The country's GDP contracted 0.7 percent in 1998.
U.S. diplomatic sources in Caracas said U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson would accompany Chavez to Houston on Feb. 25 to meet oil industry executives. Venezuela is the United States' largest supplier of oil.
Earlier this week Foreign Minister Jose Rangel said Chavez would also meet IMF officials to discuss his economic plans.
The three-day trip, from Feb. 23-25, is the Venezuelan leader's second to the United States in a month. It will start in New York and on Feb. 24 Chavez will attend an anti-corruption conference hosted by U.S. Vice President Al Gore in Washington.
Until his landslide election victory on Dec. 6, Chavez had been denied a U.S. visa due to the bloody coup attempt he led seven years ago.
But U.S. officials have recently praised Chavez, who met President Bill Clinton in Washington on Jan. 27, as "a changed man."
Richardson led the American delegation attending Chavez's inauguration and described the former paratrooper as "a potential leader in the hemisphere" and "a very bright, street-smart individual who has a vision."
Chavez, 44, was forced to cut short his previous trip to the United States due to a stomach illness, canceling a planned address to investors in New York.
Prior to the U.S. visit, Chavez will make his first foreign trip as president to Montego Bay, Jamaica on Feb. 12 to attend the last day of the annual summit of the group of 15 developing countries, a Jamaican embassy official said.
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