Associated Press
June 16, 2001
By Marcos Aleman

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Mexico and Central America hope to build both literal and metaphoric bridges between their countries with a sweeping new economic development plan.

Plan Puebla-Panama, known as the "Plan of the three P's," promotes tourism, trade, education, and environmental care while facilitating travel between the countries and connecting power grids from Mexico's Puebla state to Panama.

Mexican President Vicente Fox and the leaders of the seven Central American countries on Friday signed a joint declaration in favor of the plan, which Fox said could "end the backwardness of the region in order to incorporate it fully in the corridors of world commerce."

Salvadoran President Francisco Flores said the plan opens "a new era for our countries, an era marked by a vision that we all share - a vision of integration."

The declaration comes on the second day of Fox's three-day trip to Central America to promote Plan Puebla-Panama, which includes several of Mexico's poorest states and countries with some of the hemisphere's worst poverty: Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.

Flores said the plan would be an important source of jobs in the next two decades in a region that has a total of 65 million people in seven Central American countries and nine Mexican states.

However, the plan has faced some opposition in Mexico, where Zapatista rebels questioned whether the pro-market development plan was a plot to exterminate Indian cultures by selling their land to foreign companies.

On Friday, more than 20,000 teachers in Mexico's Chiapas state demonstrated against the plan as well, affecting classes for about a million students.

Technically, the countries have 25 years to implement the plan in its entirety, but they expect to complete highway and other infrastructure projects, as well as programs to improve education and health services, within five years, said Florencio Salazar, Fox's coordinator for the plan.

A free trade agreement among Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras took effect March 15. Mexico also has free trade agreements with Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and is negotiating with Panama and Belize.

Fox accompanied Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso to Panama, where the two leaders agreed Friday to reactivate stalled negotiations toward a free-trade agreement.

Others participating in the Plan Puebla summit were Presidents Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala, Roberto Flores Facusse of Honduras, Arnoldo Aleman of Nicaragua and Miguel Angel Rodriguez of Costa Rica, and Belize's prime minister, Said Musa.