MEXICO CITY, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Mexico and Morocco, both facing serious immigration problems, were to work together to hammer out a plan that could address their common dilemma, the foreign ministers of the two nations said here on Wednesday.

    The plan, aimed at boosting development in Africa and the Americas would tackle the immigration issue in a "holistic way which respects human rights," and would be presented at appropriate international forums, the visiting Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa and his Mexican counterpart Luis Ernesto Derbez said in a joint statement.

    "We agree that immigration is a global phenomena and that agreements should be signed that allow the flow of people in a legal, orderly and humanitarian way," Benaissa told reporters here.

    Mexico and Morocco are known for being transit routes, origins, and destinations for migrants. Africans pass through Morocco heading for the richer European Union while Latin Americans pass through Mexico on their way to the United States.

    Benaissa said he had invited Mexico to send observers to the Euro-African Migration and Development Conference set for June 10 and 11 in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, where the matter would be discussed in a "global manner considering causes and circumstances" after decades of it only being considered from the security angle, he said.

    Derbez said Mexico had accepted the invitation and would contribute experience gathered over years of managing Latin American migration along the frontier with the United States. "We have organized successful guest worker programs with Canada, and we have played host to many farm workers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras using the same framework," Derbez said.

    The two nations were also considering promoting joint anti-poverty and economic development programs in Central America and the Caribbean, which would be modeled on existing projects in the Sub-Saharan African countries of Equatorial Guinea, Senegal and Sierra Leone, Derbez said. Enditem