While the scars from the COVID pandemic continue to weigh down on the economic recovery, surging global food and energy prices have increased import bills threatened food security and jeopardized growth and poverty reduction across BIMSTEC countries. To discuss the crisis and how to address these twin challenges, World Bank’s Chief Economist for the South Asia region Mr Hans Timmer will deliver a session on “Coping with Energy and Food Prices”. The webinar is part of the knowledge and capacity building program series under the USAID-funded Cross Border Trade Capacity building program in collaboration with the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM).

Mr Hans Timmer is the Chief Economist for the South Asia region of the World Bank. Formerly, he was the Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia region. Mr Timmer was the Director of the World Bank’s Development Prospects Group.  His expertise ranges from long-term structural analyses of the economic impact of environmental policies, trade policies, and tax reforms to short-term monitoring of the business cycle and analysis of monetary and fiscal policies.

We cordially invite you to join the webinar on Thursday, 27^th October, 6.30 pm– 8:00 pm Indian Standard time (GMT +5:30). To join the webinar, please fill up the google form: https://forms.gle/VF7vibuozAVsSp4RA

The webinar will be moderated by Dr Nihal Pitigala (Lead Economist at WBD) and will be conducted over Zoom. We expect the officials (government officials, academics, researchers, business sector representatives, journalists and development workers) of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand will join the webinar.