The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) held the 16th In-House Presentation Forum on November 25, 2011 here in the premises of the Bank. While opening the forum, Chief Economist and Vice Governor of Monetary Stability Cluster, H.E Ato Yohannes Ayalew noted that the forum plays pivotal role towards enabling researchers debate on important findings and policy proposals, beef up their research skills as well as update themselves with knowledge at the frontier of economic theory and policy.
The Vice Governor further stated that, It is the wish and objective of the Bank that this forum will be able to produce papers that could be published as working paper series.
To this end, a quality assurance and screening committee would be set up in a bid to ensure that papers selected for working paper series are up to the standard, according to the Vice Governor.
Apart from this, the committee will also nominate researchers for the Banks research awards; he said further adding that a research award fund amounting close to Br.100, 000 has been earmarked for 2011/12 fiscal year. Ato Yohannes also pointed out that so far the research award fund has never been utilized for
various reasons. However, he expressed his conviction that the story would be different this time; which would of course depend on the efforts and performance of researchers. Acting Director of Domestic Economic Analysis and Publications Directorate (Directorate tasked with organizing the forum) Ato Tesfaye Gezahagne on his part said that the forum is the first one among the three forums scheduled for the current fiscal year.
The Acting Director further added that nominating discussants from clusters other than Monetary Stability which was rare in the past makes the forum unique.
Among six study papers planned for the forum, five papers highlighting banking sector development in Ethiopia, domestic saving, trade and growth, among others, were presented and deliberated by the participants.
Over 50 researchers, Directors and other invited staff of the bank were in attendance at the day-long forum.
