Labuan: Rotary District Governor Abang Haji Nawawi Drahman urged all Rotary Clubs to increase their membership so that they would be in a stronger position to do community service and jobs.

Speaking at the launching for the Rotary Pan Borneo Meet here Abang Nawawi said while it was noble to financially help local community projects to achieve this year's Rotary International theme of "Mankind Is Our Business," we need to have more members in the clubs.

He noted that following the 911 incident thousand of Rotarians wrote to the Club President asking what they could do to help, and the answer was not money but to have more club member as this in a way could lead to more peace.

Abang Nawawi also commended the Labuan Rotary Club for successfully holding the Inter-Clubs meet for District 3310.

He also wanted similar meets like this to be also held by other areas like Singapore, Melaka and Johor but the response had not been encouraging.

Some 19 clubs from Sabah and Sarawak are taking part in the interclubs meets here.

Earlier, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Labuan Corporation (LC) Zainal Abidin Arshad who launched the meet on behalf of the CEO of LC, Datuk Mohd Noor Mokar, said the LC encourages holding of such meets here.

He said the LC would continue to support such activities of NGOs as long as they were in line with government aspirations.

He also congratulated the Rotary Club for being concerned over the requirement of St Annes school and said the LC would continue to develop the infrastructure of the island until it achieved garden city status.