Cooperation is a widely acknowledged tool for progression. The Independent Economic Society (IES) hosted a day-long event, titled Annual Independent Economic Assembly 2011 (AiEA 2011). It took place on Thursday, 24th November 2011 at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) campus and was divided into two phases. The first phase consisted of an inter-university competition and the second phase was a seminar by a distinguished guest speaker, Professor Khondoker Bazlul Hoque, Chairman of Agrani Bank Limited.
Students from the Department of Economics of American International University Bangladesh (AIUB), BRAC University, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), North South University (NSU) and United International University (UIU) participated in the inter-university competition. Participants were divided into teams of three, with six teams from BRAC, IUB and UIU and two teams from AIUB and NSU. Faculty members from AIUB and BRAC University were also present. The AiEA 2011 started off with a warm welcome speech by Nihad Chowdhury Rimla, President of IES.
Head of the Department of Economics, Professor A. K. Monow-war Uddin Ahmad appreciated the initiative of the students to organise this event. Director of the School of Business, Professor Nadim Jahangir declared the competition open with the hope that by sharing facilities and knowledge, students will be able to progress further.
Phase one of the competition began with the first session which was a fun interactive game called, ‘Barter your way out’. The teams were given certain amount of commodities which they had to trade among themselves and gather the commodities itemized on their individual lists involving minimum transactions. Teams could also trade with an external agency and were given thirty minutes to complete their task. The second session was a quiz competition. The teams were asked multiple choice questions on basic principles of Economics.
The final session was a group discussion on a hypothetical scenario of the economy of Bangladesh with few statistical data. They were asked to design policies which the Bangladesh Bank and the Government could implement to improve the overall macroeconomic situation. Each team then submitted a written response and also presented their recommendations to a panel of judges comprising of faculty members from IUB. A question-answer session at the end of each team’s presentation gave the other contestants an opportunity to participate in the discussion.
Phase two began with Professor Ahmad’s introduction of the guest speaker, Professor Khondoker Bazlul Hoque. Professor Hoque spoke on the ‘Role of Banks in Industrialisation’. He mentioned that Bangladesh does not have much experience in industrialisation. Stating the determinants of industrialisation, he moved on to lay emphasis in the critical importance of quality of foreign direct investment (FDI) for the economy of Bangladesh. He discouraged relocation of industries that take advantage of lax environmental policies and also highlighted the necessity of reducing classified loans.
Vice Chancellor (in charge) of IUB, Professor Omar Rahman handed out crests to the guest speaker and winners at the end of the seminar. He expressed his satisfaction with the impressive performance of the participants of the assembly.
Article by Nuzhat Sharmeen
Independent Economic Society (IES) 
