Costa do Sauipe, Brazil  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon advocated Tuesday in Brazil the creation of a safer environment for investment in Latin America, as a way to fight the current global financial crisis.

Calderon was speaking at a large gathering of Latin American and Caribbean nations, which is set to include the summits of four blocs Tuesday and Wednesday in the northeastern Brazilian resort of Costa do Sauipe.

The Mexican president spoke in favour of adopting countercyclical fiscal policies and heavy investment in the integration of countries in the region in the fields of energy, economics, trade and politics, among others.

"Latin America in general and particularly Mercosur need to gain a much greater space as a destination for investment. We have to be able to articulate a strategy that presents Latin America as a favourable place to invest," Calderon said.

"Investment will be ever more scarce and it will be disputed by different countries and regions," he predicted.

He warned his peers of protectionism and instead advocated an elimination of commercial barriers and an effort to boost commercial exchanges.

"The answer is to open (borders) and to achieve an even greater capacity for economic and commercial integration at the regional level," Calderon said.

Protectionism, he said, "would mean strangling a bit more" Latin America's economic potential.

"We are on the verge of a generalized recession, and one of the angles that we have to stimulate precisely in developing countries with low capitalization levels and high levels of poverty is the capacity to generate growth, associated to the amount of investment that we can generate, both public and private." (dpa)