Speakers at a conference on Sunday observed that South Asia is now the fastest growing region in the world, the panacea over the ‘number’ of growth rate overshadows the importance of the quality of economic growth. They said despite high economic growth rates, the region hosts more than one-fourth of the world’s extreme poor, and inequality within the countries is on the rise.
Furthermore, there are genuine concerns of ‘jobless growth’ as the pace of employment generation, in most of the South Asian countries, lags behind the pace of economic growth. The remarks came up in the inaugural session of the 5th SANEM Annual Economists’ Conference (SAEC), 2020 organised by South Asian Network for Economic Modeling (SANEM) at BRAC Centre Inn, Mohakhali, Dhaka.
We are now at the end of our 7th Five Year Plan and we are going to launch 8th Five Year Plan on 1 July 2020. At the same time, we are also pursuing the goals of SDGs in the context of our own developments plan. The Idea has been to co-ordinate our own plans along with the SDG plans so that both plans can be implemented together and we are able to reach better synergy in our activities here.
" The goal of the government is to alleviate poverty, to make changes in the field of infrastructure, road communications, education, food security and providing minimal health care to all people. Provision of safe drinking water and other health related facilities are the need of hour", Planning MInister said while addressing.
He believed that the works of economists include research and SANEM and its sister organizations in the region of South Asia, will be able to give us more useful insights and guidance towards formulating plans and policy frameworks; so that we are able to achieve the goals of SDG, achieve our national goal of complete eradication of poverty, 100% literacy and increasing the income level of all people.
The conference began with the opening remarks by Dr. Selim Raihan, Executive Director, SANEM and Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka. Eminent Economist Professor Wahiduddin Mahmud delivered keynote speech in the session.
Breakout session 1 was held on ‘Energy and Environment’. The session was chaired by Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Chairman, Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), Bangladesh. The discussant for the session was Dr. Sakib Bin Amin, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, North South University, Bangladesh. The paper presenters for the session were Zubayer Hossain, Salman Ibn Yasin, Amina Khatun and Suvajit Banerjee.
Session 2 focused on “Trade and Development”. This session was chaired by Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). The discussant for the session was Mahtab Uddin, Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The paper presenters for the session were Mukesh Kumar Kella, Sunera Saba Khan, Muntasir Murshed and Sunetra Ghatak.
Breakout session 3 focused on “Environment and Climate Change”.
