Islamabad, July 11: President General Pervez Musharraf today vowed to "vigorously" arrest Pakistan's population explosion with the launch of the country's first-ever population control policy.

"Pakistan cannot be pulled out of the poverty trap with three million additional births every year," he declared at a function to mark world population day in the capital. The new policy aims to bring Pakistan's population growth rate down to 1.6 from the current 2.1 percent by 2012.

"We want regular monitoring of population growth to achieve the target of 1.6 percent by the year 2012," he said.

"Efforts to bring down the birth rate must be pursued vigorously through sound population management." Pakistan's mostly Muslim population currently stands a more than 145 million.

The country is now ranked the world's sixth most populous nation after China, India, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil, and ahead of Japan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Russia.

Experts believe if the boom is not arrested, Pakistan' population could double in the next 33 years. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and prolonged his presidency by five years in a referendum earlier this year, said the country's population agenda would take the centre stage of his development programme.

The military ruler also advocated introducing family planning into the country's formal and informal education curricula.

He expressed satisfaction that "presently 30 million couples are practising family planning."

Bureau Report