Dr. Saman Kelegama passes away

Senioreconomist Dr. SamanKelegama passed away in Thailand yesterday after suffering a stroke in his hotel. 

He was in Thailand to attend a conference. Dr. Kelegama was 58. 

Dr. Kelagama has contributed immensely to promote a dialogue on economic policy issues in the country.

At the time of his demise, Dr.Kelegama was the Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), a position he held since 1995. 

Highly qualified Dr. Kelegama was a trade policy economist who also works on industrial economics, public enterprise reform and macroeconomics.

He obtained his doctorate D.Phil (Econ) from Oxford University, UK in 1990. He has an MSc (Econ) from Oxford University and MSc (Maths) first class degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) India. 

Dr.Kelegama is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Economic Association. He was a visiting Fellow at the Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (1998) Salzburg Fellow (1997); USIS International Visitor (1993) and Visiting Fellow, Institute Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands (1992/3).

He was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Colombo, Post-Graduate Institute of Management (PIM), Sri Lanka, Bandaranaike Diplomatic Training institute (BDTI), Sri Lanka and several other institutions.

He served as a consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), Commonwealth Secretariat, among other organisations.

Dr. Kelegama also served on the boards of many Government, private sector and professional institutions as well as on the governing boards of a number of regional and international institutions.