Sri Lanka economists look for recovery at annual parley

Aug 31, 2009 (LBO) - The way forward following the fallout of a global economic slump that triggered a balance of payments crisis and a slowdown in island will be the focus of a conference of Sri Lanka's economists later this month.

Sri Lanka Association of Economists (SLAE) will hold its 2009 annual session on September 11 and 12 on the theme of "The Way Forward to Recovery from the Fall-out of the Global Recession."

Crisis Analysis

"We selected this theme to understand how the global recession occurred, how it spread from the US to the rest of the world," A D V de S Indraratna, President of the Sri Lanka Economic Association (SLEA) told reporters.

"We will look at how it affected us and which sectors were affected most and what we should do to get out of it.

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Shantayanan Devarajan, World Bank's chief economist for the Africa Region, will be the chief guest at the SLEA sessions. The keynote address will be delivered by Premachandra Athukorala, an academic from the Australian National University in Canberra.

In late 2008, Sri Lanka was hit by retreating hot money which was originally attracted to treasuries markets where yields were high due to heavy borrowing by a deficit spending government.