Wali Mondal, Ph.D., a professor in the department of management and marketing in National Unviersity’s School of Business and Management (SOBM), served as the keynote speaker at an economic conference at one of the largest universities in Malaysia earlier this year.
Dr. Mondal was one of a select group of 300 academicians from Malaysia and around the globe who were invited to the conference, which was launched by the Malaysian Parliament Member and Federal Minister of Higher Education, Mr. Khaled Nordin.
The conference was held at the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in the Malaysian city of Kota Bharu, located in the East Coast province of Kelantan. UiTM has campuses in all 13 of Malaysia’s provinces.
Economic growth in the three provinces comprising the East Coast of Malaysia has been slower than the national growth rate in recent years. The Government of Malaysia, therefore, created an agency known as the East Coast Economic Region (ECER) with a primary goal of devising ways to accelerate economic growth in the region.
Dr. Mondal was the keynote speaker at the ECER’s first policy-oriented Regional Conference. His address was titled “A Model to Analyze the Economic Growth of the East Coast of Malaysia: A Shift-Share Approach.”
Using the shift-share model, Dr. Mondal demonstrated the lower rate of growth of the region and concluded that in order to develop at or near the same rate as the rest of the country, the region needed to develop pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and high tech industries.
In addition to presenting his keynote paper, Dr. Mondal also conducted a pre-conference session on “Research and Publications” designed specifically for the junior faculty of the university.
Located in Southeast Asia, Malaysia is a nation of 27 million people. Strategically located along the Strait of Malacca, one of the most heavily travelled shipping lanes in the world, Malaysia is rich in natural resources. At one time, it was the world’s largest producer of tin, rubber and palm oil.
