GUATEMALA CITY -- With less than 24 hours left in 2008, Guatemalan authorities said Wednesday that their country will end this year with some 5,600 murders, an increase of 8.35 percent in 2007.

"During 2008, an average of 17 murders per day occurred," Rember Larios, deputy director of the national police, told a press conference in the capital.

Attributing the rise in homicides to expanded activity by drug traffickers, he did not say why the number of murders in Guatemala - a nation of some 13 million people - should be slightly higher than that in neighboring Mexico, which has more than 100 million inhabitants and is the scene of open war among rival drug cartels.

The national police "have already defined the strategic security plans for next year," he said, pointing to the recent creation of an intelligence division responsible for coordinating efforts against the drug trade and organized crime.

Guatemalan police carried out 36,725 arrests this year, 5.9 percent more than in 2007, the deputy director said.

Larios said that police also confiscated 4,546 guns, an increase of 844 over last year, and recovered 1,790 stolen vehicles, a gain of 373 compared with 2007.