Okaz newspaper

SOME journalists and media men in our country have been warning against an imminent population explosion.

They said the annual population growth was four percent which meant that the number of the Saudi population would double during the coming few years.

The journalists believed that the increase in the population would adversely affect health, educational, civic, entertainment, housing, economic and other various services being extended to the citizens.

They called for implementing programs to organize child breeding and to convince the "strong" men to use all the available means to conquer their manhood.

Some writers warned us that the population explosion was coming very soon but many years have passed without anything of the sort happening.

According to the latest figures released by the General Authority of Statistics (GaStat), the number of the Saudis was 20.06 million in 2016 which reached 20.34 million in 2017. This means that the Saudi population has increased by 340,000 persons during a year.

When you make your calculations, you will find that this ratio is less than two percent. Where is the four percent increase the journalists have been warning about?

If the ratio of the increase the journalists have been talking about was correct, the annual rise of the population would be 800,000 persons not just 340,000.

The inaccuracy in the treatment of some social issues and the exaggerations may often lead to improper results. This will make the people who tend to mock the news by saying "it is just newspaper talk" to be more or less right.

So it seems that the warning against a population explosion in our country is just "newspaper talk".

The population growth in the Kingdom is quite normal. It may even be less than a number of other countries inhabited by tens or hundreds of millions of people.

Some of these countries in Asia, like Japan and South Korea, have reached high places in civilization, modernization and development.

This is if we do not mention Europe where a country may have a population of 60 to 70 million while its area is not more than 10th of the Kingdom's span.

A number of these countries do not have natural resources of oil, gas or precious metals but they have never complained against population explosion.

With the little they have, these countries have achieved development and are now in the forefront leading other countries in advancement and progress.