ANALYSIS-Cuban-Venezuelan ties boom under Raul Castro

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, July 21 (Reuters) - Speculation that Cuba's relations with Venezuela, its closest ally, might cool when Raul Castro became president has disappeared as the countries have forged even deeper and broader ties.

Some experts thought Raul Castro could not maintain the close relations his brother Fidel Castro had with his socialist protege, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but the oil-rich South American country is investing billions of dollars in Cuba in increasingly complex ventures.

The two revolutionary allies aim to use the projects to reshape Latin America's political map by showing there is an alternative to capitalism and its main proponent, the United States.

They have an oil-for-services deal in which Venezuela ships 92,000 barrels a day to Cuba in exchange for the services of thousands of Cuban doctors and other technical assistance.

But they also reported more than 300 cooperation projects in 2007 and Venezuelan banks are financing 58 Cuban manufacturing programs and more than a dozen agricultural development schemes.

"Since the beginning, both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez have been determined to move the relationship between their countries beyond the oil-for-doctors swap and toward something that is much broader and has the potential for sweeping regional impact," said Dan Erikson, a Caribbean expert at the Inter-American Dialogue policy group in Washington.

"Raul Castro is strongly interested in moving beyond an alliance built on personalities by creating sustainable, institutional arrangements, and this has helped to cement the Cuban-Venezuelan relationship," he said.

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