Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim unveiled plans Monday to invest $8.3 billion dollars this year in 19 countries, most of them in Latin America.

"We're going to invest in all the countries where we are, that's 19 countries," said Slim, considered the world’s richest man. "It will be an investment of $8.3 billion," he told a news conference in Mexico City.

Most of the investment, some 3.66 billion dollars, would be in Mexico, including more than 40 percent in the telecoms industry, as well as road building, mines, water treatment and a "digitaluniversity," Slim said.

He said he aimed to reinforce high speed Internet in Mexico "so that two of every three people have access to the network."

A further 2.5 billion would be invested in telecoms in Brazil, which "is a bigger market, a bigger territory," while other countries included Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

"In Brazil, we're behind, which means we need to accelerate investments to compete with the (former) state monopolies, we have to make our own network to be able to compete with them,” said Slim, who owns Embratel in Brazil.

Slim said he believed Latin America, as well as Asia, was in a "favorable situation internationally."