SINGAPORE -- Oil prices held firm in Asia Tuesday, on hopes a US economic stimulus package and a bailout for the auto sector would be enough to nurse the world's biggest energy consumer back to health, dealers said.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, added 25 cents to $43.96 a barrel. The contract closed on Monday $2.90 higher at $43.71.

Brent North Sea crude for January delivery added 12 cents to $43.54 after closing on Monday $3.68 higher at $43.42.

Financial markets, including oil futures, soared after US President-elect Barack Obama promised at the weekend the biggest infrastructure investment in half a century, and Congress signaled a rescue of the Big Three US automakers.

"Global investors have apparently taken a significant degree of solace" from the moves, said John Kilduff, an analyst at MF Global.

But some analysts said the gains may be short-lived because energy demand in the immediate term is still soft, with the United States and other industrialized economies stuck in a recession.

"Oil remains fundamentally weak... The downward trend is very much intact," commodity analysts from Societe Generale bank said in a report.

Investors will be watching closely a December 17 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Oran, Algeria where the group is widely expected to announce another round of production cuts to shore up slumping prices.

OPEC, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's crude, maintained existing output levels at its last meeting in November.

On Friday, Brent crude tumbled below $40 after the US Labor Department reported that employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the biggest monthly decline in 34 years, and the unemployment rate rose to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent.

Oil prices have plunged by about 70 percent since reaching record highs above $147 in July while a global economic slowdown weakens energy demand.