Batam, Riau Islands (ANTARA News) - The National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKB)`s Chairman Sugiri Syarief chaired a meeting to discuss the 2011 family planning and population programs here Monday.

"Population problem and the coverage of the Family Planning Program in the previous years will become references to begin the tasks and functions of of BKKBN optimally," Sugiri said.

The meeting was attended by chairmen of the local BKKBN offices throughout Indonesia.

BKKB would complete the grand design program to engineer population and continue the revitalization of family planning program, he said.

BKKBN has launched training of providers involving around 35,000 nurses and 10,343 doctors to prepare them serve 23,500 family planning clinics, according to Sugiri.

Quoting the results of the 2010 census, Sugiri recently said the population growth exceeded the national projection of 237.6 million with a population growth rate of 1.49 percent per year.

"If no effort is made to curb population growth we will face a population boom in the next few years," BKKBN Chief Sugiri Syarief said after opening a coordination meeting between BKKBN and the Indonesian Women`s Congress (Kowani) in Jakarta early March 2011.

If the population growth rate was not kept down the country would have a population of 450 million in 2045, meaning that one of every 20 people in the world would be Indonesian, he said.

For its part, concrete steps were needed to lower the population growth rate and to improve the quality of population through various programs, he said.

"To achieve the goal we need grand design to launch population development and revitalize national family planning program," he said.

BKKBN was stepping up cooperation with Kowani in familiarizing the Indonesian married couples with family planning, he said.
(Uu.F001/H-NG)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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