The leaders of Mexico and Central America on Friday wrapped up a summit where they discussed regional integration and progress on the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP), the isthmus-long development program that has become the axis of their relations.

Presidents Vicente Fox of Mexico, Enrique Bolaños of Nicaragua, Abel Pacheco of Costa Rica, Francisco Flores of El Salvador, Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala and Ricardo Maduro of Honduras, as well as Belize Prime Minister Said Musa and Panamanian Vice President Arturo Vallarino attended the meeting.

PPP coordinator Florencio Salazar told EFE the leaders supported the proposals drafted over the past year and approved the construction of a grid linking their countries' energy infrastructure from Panama to Guatemala as of this year.

Construction on the 320 million-dollar grid is scheduled to be completed in 2003 and will be financed with soft loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Spanish government.

Salazar said the leaders also signed an agreement to build a Central American highway at an estimated cost of more than 3 billion dollars.

The main highway projects consist of building an expressway on the Atlantic Coast linking El Salvador to Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, and another freeway along the Pacific Coast between Panama and Puebla, Mexico, in addition to several connecting routes and offshoots.

Mexico's deputy foreign secretary, Gustavo Iruegas, said regional leaders have urged their PPP coordinators to inform the public about the plan's goals, because a lack of information has led to uncertainty about the project's main objective, the sustainable economic development and well-being of the region.

The regional leaders also recommended PPP coordinators consult with indigenous peasant communities "to determine their concerns and fears," Salazar said.

IDB president Enrique Iglesias on Friday urged the region's leaders to advance "at a brisk pace" with respect to human development initiatives and disaster prevention strategies as part of the plan's second phase.

Iglesias acknowledged that "the asymmetric globalization that prevails today" is a concern for "vast segments of society on account of the negative effects it could have on our people, cultures and economies."

According to Iglesias, the best defense against international economic turbulence is good internal management with sound macroeconomic and social policies, as well as "strengthening the integration among ourselves." .