WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said his country has lot to learn from Brazil in the field of renewable energy and would utilise that opportunity to build close ties with other Latin American countries.

Obama has promised to redouble his country’s efforts to use clean energy during talks with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the White House Saturday, EFE reported.

Lula has offered Obama a ride in one of Brazil’s ‘flex-fuel’ vehicles that run on ethanol and gasoline when he visits Brazil.

Lula said Obama’s election offers a ‘historic opportunity’ for the US to improve relations with Latin America. Besides energy, the leaders also discussed the current global economic crisis, the White House said in a statement.

Obama said there was no conflict between the US and Europe on the G-20 summit agenda scheduled April 2 in London. He said the US would place the financial reform at the centre of its priorities, and that the $787 billion stimulus package approved last month was only a first step in that direction.

Lula said the ongoing credit criss has threatened the world economy and ‘if we do not make credit supply flow again, then, yes, the crisis could deepen in our country’.

Obama said the goal should be openning of trade and not to deviate from it.

He tolds reporters after talks with Lula that it was due to the economic and political stability, the entry of foreign capital has increased in the country.

However, he said it would be difficult for the US to enter into new trade agreements in the midst of an economic crisis.