5th South Asia Economic Summit

Dr. Saman Kelegama, Executive Director, IPS, Dr. Dushni Weerakoon, Deputy Director, IPS, and Anushka Wijesinha, Research Economist of IPS were resource persons at the 5th South Asia Economic Summit (SAES), held in Islamabad, Pakistan during 11 – 13 September, 2012. It was organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan. IPS was a co-organizer of the 5th South Asia Economic Summit along with CPD (Bangladesh), SAWTEE (Nepal), RIS (India), and SACEPS (Nepal).

Executive Director made a presentation on “Development Agenda for a New South Asia” during the last plenary session and a presentation on “Regional Trade Agreements in South Asia: Current Outlook and the Way Forward” at a concurrent session. Dr. Dushni Weerakoon made Special Comments in the concurrent session on “Migration Across South Asia: Emerging Trends and Opportunities,”  while Anushka Wijesinha made Special Comments in the concurrent session on “Transport and Logistics Corridors: South Asian Outlook”.

At the summit, the book titled ‘Regional Economic Integration: Challenges for South Asia during Turbulent Times’. edited by Saman Kelegama together with Ratnakar Adhikari, . Puspa Sharma and Paras Kharel was launched.

The book contains contributions from South Asian authors on a range of issues that have far reaching implications for deeper regional economic integration in South Asia. The book, jointly published by SAWTEE and South Asia Center for Policy Studies (SACEPS), highlights challenges for regional economic integration in South Asia by examining the current shortcomings and future challenges.

The theme of the Summit was “Making Growth Inclusive and Sustainable in South Asia” .The broad objective of the Summit was to facilitate dialogue between relevant stakeholders to identify key trade and socio-economic issues for regional cooperation in South Asia, in the context of continuing global economic adversity.