Moscow specialists will compile a plan for Caracas aimed at improving the conditions of Venezuelans living in slums, a source in the Moscow city administration said.

A group of Moscow officials headed by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov visited the Venezuelan capital in early May to share their experience in constructing mass cheap housing.

The Russian and Venezuelan authorities signed an agreement to create the plan for the development of Caracas up to 2020. Some $500 million has been allocated to finance the project's first stage, Latin American media said.

"A task has been set up to elaborate a complex approach to the development of the city and modernizing its infrastructure," a source in the Moscow city administration told RIA Novosti.

The plan, which is to be devised by September 1, will include the development of city water facilities, sewerage and electric power supply as well as projects to move inhabitants of shanties known as "ranchos" to better homes.

The idea of collaboration between the Venezuelan and Russian capitals came up during the visit Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Caracas last month. The Russian premier was surprised by the extent of the city slums.

The source said, citing President Hugo Chavez, that high-rise buildings are expected to be constructed on areas of about four hectares in downtown Caracas and 200 hectares in the outskirts of the city by 2011-2012.

"Our architects have great experience in designing seismic-resistant high rise buildings," the first deputy chairman of Moscow City Architecture Committee, Pshimaf Shevotsukov, said.

He said high-rise buildings that can survive 9-magnitude earthquakes will be constructed in the Venezuelan capital, which is located in a high-activity seismic zone.

Chavez said he had decided to build a monument to the Russian Revolution in Caracas, to be unveiled on its centenary in 2017.

MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti)