Mexican Rural Development Plan Needs 1.8 Million Dollars

The Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP), a development initiative based on free trade which extends from southern Mexico to Panama, will need some 1.827 billion U.S. dollars next year in Mexico alone, the plan's coordinator in Mexico, Florencio Salazar, said on Saturday.

Florencio Salazar said the construction of the plan's infrastructure will take five years.

The coordinator ruled out the initiative will generate misery belts and affirmed it will contribute to the combat against poverty, in particular in Indian communities.

In Mexico's Chiapas state, the rebel armed group, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), opposes to the plan on the grounds that multinationals will spoil the lands of indigenous settlements.

The left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) also expressed its worries over the PPP, arguing that it would foster illegal trafficking of domestic fauna.






People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/