CABO SAN LUCAS - Calling terrorism a direct threat to free trade, Pacific Rim leaders agreed Sunday to draw closer in their fight against it with "a series of concrete steps" that will protect and streamline the movement of goods, people and data.

In a separate statement, they called on North Korea to immediately stop building nuclear weapons.

Top officials from the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum issued a series of joint declarations - a blueprint on conducting more efficient trade in a world of disappearing economic borders and on making physical borders safer.

"We commit to taking a series of concrete steps that will protect and make more efficient the flows of trade, finance and information," said Mexican President Vicente Fox, who as host of the summit presented the declaration.

"We condemn in the strongest terms recent terrorist acts in the APEC region, and reaffirm our determination to enhance cooperation in countering and responding to terrorism."

The leaders also endorsed a U.S.-crafted proposal to overhaul the Pacific Rim's tradeways, tightening security on millions of shipping containers, fortifying cockpit doors in airliners and strengthening customs cooperation.

APEC members had widely supported the proposal, though some developing nations worried they couldn't afford to implement it so quickly. The declaration said such common standards would be put into place by 2005 "whenever possible."

The leaders also called on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to conduct assessments of countries' efforts to stop the flow of money to terrorists.

The declarations came after APEC foreign ministers and, later, heads of state, spent days discussing the impact of terrorist acts on their individual economies and their efforts to open trade borders in a new age of security.

"We agreed on the importance of fighting terrorism, which poses a profound threat to our vision," said the main declaration, released minutes after Fox's announcement.

But Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien cautioned that strong condemnation of terrorism at last year's APEC meeting in Shanghai, China - which came only weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - did not end terrorist activity.

"It's not because we have a declaration in Shanghai that terrorism is going to disappear," he said, adding: "Now it's coming from anywhere. It's completely unpredictable."

The declaration called for the abolition of agricultural subsidies that protect individual nations' farmers from the pressures of the international market. Many nations, including Mexico, have criticized the United States, European countries and Japan for such protectionism.

North Korea's nuclear-weapons program and U.S. threats of war against Iraq also dominated the weekend summit of the 21-member group, created in 1989 mainly to promote free trade among economies of the Pacific Rim.

The main declaration mentioned neither Iraq nor North Korea in particular. However, in a separate statement, the leaders called on North Korea to "visibly honor its commitment to give up nuclear weapons programs."

They did not directly condemn North Korea for trying to build a nuclear bomb - something the United States had wanted. Even so, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that in diplomatic language, "it doesn't get much stronger than what they did."

After a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Bush also failed to win harsh words from his allies for North Korea. The three leaders' statement merely called upon Pyongyang to "dismantle this program in a prompt and verifiable manner," and Tokyo said it would continue talks with North Korea on establishing diplomatic relations.

Bush also failed to sway any U.N. Security Council members on his proposal to threaten Iraq with war if it doesn't disarm.

This year's APEC summit came weeks after a devastating terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali and unfolded while Chechen separatists held hundreds hostage in a Moscow theater.

The leaders' statement also commended Russia, Indonesia and the Philippines for their "prompt and decisive efforts to find and bring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of ... terrorist acts to justice."

The APEC leaders - including Bush and Jiang Zemin, presidents of the world's largest developed and developing economies - issued the declaration after a retreat Sunday.

In keeping with APEC tradition of a dress code set by the host country, the men wore white, long-sleeved guayabera shirts; the alliance's three female leaders wore colorfully embroidered blouses called huipiles.

While such political talk among industrialized nations was the loudest voice at APEC, developing nations quietly spoke about claiming their share of prosperity, saying that the increasingly globalized world is helping little to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

They said reducing poverty will go far toward reducing terrorism.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called for "a level playing field" in trade, joining other leaders in criticizing agricultural subsidies and trade barriers in the United States, Japan and the European Union that have hindered exports from developing nations.

Such subsidies are expected to be a major sticking point in the World Trade Organization meetings next year. The APEC leaders said they supported efforts by Russia and Vietnam to join the WTO.