By JULIE WATSON
 Associated Press Writer

 MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — President Vicente Fox unveiled a plan Wednesday to develop Mexico's 2,000 mile border with the United  States, calling the region known for its U.S.-owned factories, booming population and sprawling shantytowns, a ``land of hope, a  land of opportunities.''

 His plans call for a network of government sectors that will oversee more than 50 programs dealing with the effects of the North  American Free Trade Agreement and other regional issues.

 While NAFTA has dramatically increased U.S.-Mexico trade and brought hundreds of thousands of jobs to both sides of the border, it  also has clogged roads with trucks, depleted water supplies and increased air pollution.

 Uncontrolled growth has left cities with crumbling schools, overrun hospitals and dilapidated sewage systems.

 Fox announced the plan in this northern Mexican city, where he was accompanied by the governors of Mexico's six border states and  Mexico's border czar, Ernesto Ruffo, a post created by Fox to oversee the northern border's development.

 Because of its rapid growth and development, ``this part of our country in some ways is a land of hope, a land of opportunities,'' Fox  said.

 In the past six years, the Mexican border region has captured nearly one-third of the country's foreign investment. Salaries and  education levels are twice the national average.

 Fox said the border's ``human capital is precisely what can give us a competitive advantage.''

 The region has been hit hard by the U.S. economic slowdown and tightened border security that has caused delays and hurt businesses that rely on cross-border commerce. Fox said he has concrete proposals to speed border crossings, but he did not
 elaborate.

 He called for Mexican border states to work more closely with their northern neighbors.

 Fox said the proposal complements his ambitious development program known as the Puebla-Panama plan, which envisions an  infrastructure, investment and tourism corridor stretching from the central Mexico state of Puebla to Panama.

 That plan aims to curb the flow of migrants from Central America and Mexico's southern states who have flooded the northern  border's cities while attempting to illegally enter the United States.

 In March, Monterrey will host the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, which will look at how to redistribute wealth and encourage development across the globe. Fox said he and U.S. President George W. Bush will renew U.S.-Mexico talks at the meeting.

 U.S. and Mexican officials had been negotiating a major increase in the number of Mexican ``guest workers'' who could temporarily enter the United States and an amnesty for some of the millions of Mexicans already in the United States illegally.

 But talks were put on hold after Sept. 11 when security and the integrity of the border became the first priority of the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress.