SA Economics undergrads to meet in Colombo

The Department of Economics, University of Colombo will host the fourth Conference of the South Asian Economics Students, on February 23-24, 2007 at the Galle Face Hotel.

The World Bank will be the main sponsor of the event and the Economics Department is anticipating broad stakeholder participation with sponsorships from public and private sector institutions and the NGOs.

Undergraduates from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will present country papers at the conference on four themes:

(*) Promoting Business Environment in South Asia, (*) Promoting Regional Trade in Services, (*) Is Small always Beautiful? - Small and Medium Enterprising in South Asia and (*) Economics of Ageing Population in South Asia.

We expect over 200 participants representing all universities in Sri Lanka. The Economics Departments of five leading universities in South Asia serve as the coordinating institutions of the conference in Delhi University in India, Dhaka University in Bangladesh, Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, Tribhuvan University in Nepal and Colombo University. The first, second and third conferences were held in Delhi (2004), Lahore (2005) and Dhaka (2006), while 32 Sri Lankan undergraduates participated in these events.

The "conference of undergraduates" is a novel initiative, according to Dr. Sirimal Abeyratne, Senior Lecturer in Economics of the Colombo University who has been serving as the Sri Lanka Coordinator of the South Asian Economics Students Meet.

It provides an invaluable opportunity for undergraduate students to meet their co-fellows from other South Asian countries, to interact with them, to learn from each other, and even to recognise their own strengths and weaknesses as undergraduates, in addition to their capacity building in research and paper presentations at international level.

Abeyratne hopes that this will be the main regional body of Economics Undergraduates in South Asia which will provide an opportunity for undergraduates to emerge as future leaders to manage development and cooperation in the region.