KARACHI: Agha Mohammad Ghouse, Economic Adviser to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Karachi, said on Saturday [May 7] that Pakistan must and can realise the targets of the Third Five-Year Plan, without foreign aid.

It would be wrong to create an impression that Pakistan`s continued accelerated rate of growth will depend upon foreign aid, he observed, while addressing a Brain`s Trust Programme of the Economic Society of Karachi University.

He disagreed with a questioner that research allocation has been more political than economic.

He asserted that pure economic principles and tools alone cannot answer all the social, regional and welfare objectives of a country.

He pointed out that Pakistan was a good example of a developing country which has not allowed politics to dominate and frustrate economic reality. In re cent years, social and political institutions have been successfully moulded for meeting the urgent need of economic development, he added.

Likewise, any shortfall in foreign aid promised earlier should also be met successfully through social and political changes. It is for the economists to suggest the changes necessary for meeting the Third Plan targets without foreign aid, he observed.

Agha Ghouse said that political thinkers, social workers and economists should pool their ideas so that the economic objectives of the nation were realised whatever the international situation. The dynamism of the private sector and the willingness of the people at large to sacrifice for the sake of national progress, should be properly husbanded and channelled,headded.-Staff Correspondent [Meanwhile in Lahore] the West Pakistan Society for the rehabilitation of the disabled would soon open a chain of clinics for handicapped persons atvarious placesin the province.

Addressing a news conference here yesterday [May 7], the Society`s President Begum G. A.

Khan, said that clinics would be set up at Multan, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Quetta and also in Dacca.

One such clinic is already working in Lahore.

-Agencies