Brazil, the United States, China, India, South Africa and the European Union will meet later this month to discuss a multilateral agreement on biofuels, a high level Brazilian official said on Wednesday.

Antonio Patriota, under secretary general of political affairs in Brazil's Foreign Affairs Ministry, said these countries had been working on a document on a global ethanol production standard, which would be launched soon.

The United States wants to link up with Brazil on biofuel development with an eye toward building a global market in renewable oil substitutes like ethanol.

"A standard on ethanol production is one of the questions that these countries consider as something in common," said Patriota, who met earlier in the day with his U.S. counterpart Nicholas Burns.

Burns, the U.S. State Department's number-three official, said on Tuesday that Brazil and the United States should work together to help other countries learn how to produce biofuel.

Brazil and the United States together produce about 70 percent of all ethanol fuel worldwide. Americans make ethanol from corn, while Brazilians use sugar cane, a far more efficient raw material that yields cheaper ethanol.