ISLAMABAD, May 7: A meeting of senior officials from the Pakistan government, financial institutions and foreign government development partners on Friday agreed that large investment was required to bring the tribal people, living along the country's western border, into Pakistan's mainstream.

The objective of the exercise was to bring political, economic and social stability into the western areas of NWFP and Balochistan, by developing a physical and social infrastructure to improve living standards in the border tribal area.

The meeting was presided over by Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz. Among those who participated were representatives of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and other bilateral lenders, who were given separate briefings by the NWFP and Balochistan governors about the individual development requirements in their respective tribal border regions.

An official statement issued at the end of the meeting said that the meeting focused on development of physical and social infrastructure, peoples' empowerment through access to education, income generation, better irrigation and availability of utilities.

The governors of Balochistan, NWFP and the chief secretaries of the respective provinces briefed the meeting about the governments efforts to improve quality of life in these areas through improving education, health facilities and building physical infrastructure.

The tribal area in NWFP comprises seven agencies and six frontier regions. It has an area of 27,220 square kilometres with a population of 3.2 million. The NWFP governor said that accelerated social and economic development in the Federally Administered Tribal Area could bring these areas into the national mainstream.

The Balochistan governor cited underdevelopment, shortage of resources, inaccessibility, and the protracted presence of the Afghan refugee population as some of the impediments in development of these areas.