Peradeniya University holds eighth International Economics Research Symposium (PIERS)
View(s):The eighth Peradeniya International Economics Research Symposium (PIERS) was held at the University of Peradeniya’s Postgraduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The keynote address was delivered by Pathfinder Foundation Executive Director Lashman Siriwardene. The theme of the symposium was “Stimulating economic growth to face economic and social challenges during and post Covid-19.”
Chief Guest Vice-Chancellor Professor Upul B.Dissanayake addressing the gathering and pictures of the symposium.
“Let me, at the very outset accept the fact that the current economic situation and related social outcomes are globally, as well as locally, gloomy and a return to normalcy in the short run is unimaginable. The entire world is going through an unprecedented health crisis which has driven almost all countries other than China into negative economic growth,” Mr Siriwardene said.
Executive Director Siriwardene said at beginning of the pandemic, China, which was considered to be the manufacturing hub of the world, was affected. Thus the consumption of raw materials, supply of intermediate and final products as well as consumer demand were affected. Within a few weeks all advanced economies, were confronting much more serious disruptions than China, he added.
“Only China has escaped from falling to negative growth. The most recent IMF report indicates that the global economy is climbing out of the depths to which it had plummeted during the Great Lockdown in April. But with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to spread through new spikes, many countries have slowed down reopening or resorted to partial lockdowns from time to time,” he said.
“While the recovery in China, which is considered as a ‘miracle of the miracles’, has been much speedier than western economies expected. The growth seen in these economies during 3Q2020 has lost momentum. The prospect of the global economy returning back to pre-pandemic activity levels has been experiencing many setbacks,” Mr Siriwardene said.
“The IMF has indicated that global GDP at the end of 2021 would still be 6.5 per cent lower than it was in January 2020, before the pandemic began to affect economic activity around the world. This forecast was made before the recent spikes in COVID-19.”
“The Sri Lankan economy, which experienced a much lower rate of growth than its potential in 2018 and 2019 aggravated by the crisis due to 19th Amendment to the Constitution and Easter Sunday bombings, is now encountering ongoing challenges due to the outbreak of COVID,” he said.
“These relatively lenient conditions provided incentives for the successive governments to keep borrowing for many development projects, from bi-lateral and multi-lateral lending agencies, irrespective of their inflated costs. In most of these cases, financial benefits also spill over to our politicians, bureaucrats, and technocrats. Notwithstanding such leakages, most of these foreign-funded projects increased the availability of more sophisticated infrastructure and utilities in sectors such as electricity, highways, drinking and irrigation water, as well as the Colombo port and airport. In addition, education, agriculture and health were the prime targets of both Sri Lankan policymakers and donors,” Mr Siriwardene said.
“There was a period that Sri Lanka was termed as “a donor darling”. However, since we attained lower-middle-income country status, concessionary funding has not been available and therefore, most borrowings have been at commercial or near commercial lending rates. In this context, the country has accumulated over US$ 34.7bn debt. These borrowings have been for development projects, import of consumption items and direct budgetary support to meet current expenditure,” he said.
The Chief Guest was the University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Upul B.Dissanayake. The event was organised by the University of Peradeniya’s Economics and Statistics Department, in collaboration with the South Asian University (SAU) at New Delhi in India.
The Department of Economics and Statistics, the pioneer institution in economics education and research in the country, launched the Peradeniya Economics Research Symposium (PERS) in 2013. The objective was to bring together academics, researchers, policymakers, public officials, and students in the field of economics to share their research findings and learn from interaction with each other.
Since then this symposium had continued to an annual event whilst growing in stature and participation. Since 2017, the symposium widened its doors to include greater foreign participation and thus became known as the Peradeniya International Economics Research Symposium (PIERS). University of Peradeniya Deputy Vice Chancellor S.H.P. Parakrama Karunarathna, and University of Peradeniya Arts Faculty Dean O. G. Dayaratna Bandara also participated in the symposium.
A total of 28 research papers were scheduled to be presented at the symposium under 08 technical sessions. The symposium closed with an invited speech by Dr. Muditha Karunarathna from the University’s Department of Economics and Statistics. Prof. S. Vijesandiran was the Chairperson and Prof. J. G. Sri Ranjith was the Co-ordinator of the organising committee.
- L.B.Senaratne