Buenos Aires  - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced Monday a short- and medium-term public works plan worth more than 32.2 billion dollars, aimed at generating employment and economic activity at a time of global economic crisis.

The plan's execution is to be decentralized, and provincial and town governments will be in charge of its implementation. It will include the building of new homes, hospitals, schools, roads, railroads and gas and power distribution networks.

The government in Buenos Aires has already secured financing for some two-thirds of the total amount required and is working to get the rest, said Argentine Public Works Secretary Jose Lopez.

Fernandez de Kirchner - who became president in December 2007 to succeed her husband, Nestor Kirchner - stressed that the plan is not a rushed reaction to the global economic and financial crisis.

"This is no contingency plan. Investment has always been conceived as a most important instrument for this administration," she said.

The public works plan is set to be in operation until 2011, as the growth figures of the Argentine economy slow in the face of the current uncertainty prevailing at the world level.

"From the current 400,000 construction workers we are going to move on to 780,000 active workers," Fernandez de Kirchner said. (dpa)