QUETTA, Aug 2: Governor Balochistan Owais Ahmed Ghani has said that without resolving the problem of increasing population, it will be difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals as the country’s population registers an increase of 3.6 million every year.

Speaking at a ceremony of launching “Pakistan Millennium Development Goals: Report 2004” held here on Tuesday, he said that with the huge increase in population, it was difficult to provide employment and other facilities to all the people.

He said that pressure was mounting by many folds on every sector of national economy due to the increase in population and all efforts being made by the government to develop the country were proving futile.

“It is necessary to overcome this problem,” the governor said, adding that the entire nation should seriously take the issue and extend cooperation to the government in this regard as the government could not resolve the problem.

Mr Ghani said that increasing the size of national economy was necessary for achieving the development goals and the government was making all possible efforts in this regard.

He said that the construction of Gwadar port and Kachhi canal would help in expending the size of national economy as the projects would create huge job opportunities and help in reducing poverty in the country.

He said that the process of the devolution of power would also be helpful in achieving the Millennium Development targets as the system was speedily moving towards success and large number of people was taking interest in the local body elections through filling nomination papers.

He said that the system provided an opportunity to the people to influence government policies and resolve the problems being faced by the common man.

Senior Provincial Minister for Planning and Development Maulana Abdul Wasay, while speaking on the occasion, stressed the need for achieving the targets in view of backwardness of Balochistan.

He said that for achieving the goals, education, health, agriculture and mineral sectors should be given more attention.

He said that limited resources of the province were main cause of its backwardness.