Soccer, Economy Top Agenda at Summit : Central America: Six presidents gather amid World Cup fever, then turn to the business of battling poverty.

Central American presidents opened their seventh regional summit Saturday amid expressions of hope for economic recovery and an obsession with soccer.

The opening of the first formal meeting was delayed by nearly two hours as the presidents of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama gathered around television sets to watch the World Cup soccer match between Costa Rica and Brazil before getting down to business.

The match, which Brazil won by a score of 1 to 0, was scheduled to begin at the exact hour the summit opening ceremonies were to start.

“With all honesty, I have to tell you that we still have not begun the summit because we were watching the end of the game,” said Costa Rican President Rafael Angel Calderon, emerging from the summit meeting room just after the match ended.

In a speech during the summit’s opening ceremony in the city 28 miles west of Guatemala City, Guatemalan President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo praised what he said would be a meeting of hope.

Wars and political conflicts across the region are moving toward resolution, he said, and the leaders can now work toward improving battered economies and battling poverty.

“We have come to the conclusion that if war is an act of cruelty to humans, then poverty is an act of abandonment of humans that we must address,” Cerezo said.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Ariel Rivera Irias said that the ministers had agreed on a five-point agenda for the talks:

* Coordinating each country’s macroeconomic policies, such as foreign exchange, government spending and taxation.

* Coordinating poverty eradication programs.

* Coordinating transportation and telecommunications throughout the region.

* Creating a regional agricultural policy.

* Negotiating as a region on trade issues and on the region’s foreign debt, which is estimated at $21.3 billion.

This is the first time Panama has attended a summit of Central American presidents. Panama, which declared its independence from Colombia in 1903, has traditionally not been considered a part of Central America.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III is to arrive tonight to meet with each of the presidents after the summit.