Leaders from 16 Pacific countries started their three-day discussion on the adoption of an ambitious regional plan toward regional integration here on Tuesday.

The Pacific Plan is among the top agenda of the 36th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to help economic growth, good governance and security in the region.

The ten-year plan identifies some 20 regional initiatives for the first three years from 2006, covering areas ranging from integration of trade and campaign for gender equality.

PIF leaders have expressed the hope that the plan will bring the region peace, harmony, security and economic prosperity and keep pace with other parts of the world in regionalism.

The plan is expected to be adopted at the forum when regional powers Australia and New Zealand as well as forum host Papua New Guinea (PNG) are promoting it and seven smaller island state leaders rendered their support to it at a their summit on Monday.

PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare told the opening ceremony that the plan reflects the collective wills of the peoples of the region and will bring about deeper regional cooperation.

A closer South Pacific region tied by the forum will be conducive to better cooperation with other international and regional organizations like the United Nations, he said.

This is despite the fact that some PIF members fear some measures under the plan may harm domestic industries or their sovereignty and some others are worrying about big power's heavier influence in the process of regionalism.

In his speech, Somare stressed national identify in the context of the Pacific Plan, "each (people's) will speaks to their national identity."

PIF Secretary-General Greg Urwin told the opening ceremony that there has been an active consultation on the Pacific Plan.

"This is the first time, since the establishment of the Forum in 1971, that a broad-based consultation on regionalism has been undertaken in this way," he said.

He pointed out that a challenge ahead will be "how to make the ongoing development of the Pacific Plan and of our regional cooperation generally effective at national level." He called for "strong partnerships at many different levels as we seek to achieve these aims."

The PIF, established in 1971, groups Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fuji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Source: Xinhua