LONDON -- Mexican President Vicente Fox and his Brazilian counterpart Luis Inacio Lula da Silva are seeking permanent seats for their countries on the UN Security Council, they told a British newspaper Wednesday.

Outlining their agendas within Latin America and on the world stage ahead of the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Evian, France, the two leaders, interviewed in the *** Financial Times ***, also called for the abolition of agricultural subsidies from developed countries.

"I'm also coming with the proposal that Mexico should be permanently invited to the G8 because we're the world's ninth largest economy, and that would be only natural and logical," Fox said. He said that the unanimous Security Council vote on a postwar Iraq resolution was "very significant because it was a return to multilateralism."

Mexico is set to chair the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting in September.

As for Brazil, Lula said he would call on the world's richest countries to raise investment in the developing world in order to eradicate terrorism and drug-trafficking and to strengthen free trade and democracy.

"Rich people need to understand that when the third world develops (economically), the first world benefits ... through more markets for their companies and products," Lula told the AFP.

Lula said he realized it would be hard to convince the most influential world leaders and said he would go to Evian prepared to accept differences with the other heads of state.

"I'm going to meet a bunch of people I've never seen before," he said.

"Politicians are like football coaches, they may like each other but they want their team to win," Lula said.

"I need to learn to live with U.S. President George W. Bush. I can't ask him to become someone he's isn't and vice versa," he said.