Visit of Dr. Ishaq Bhatii
Subject: Program repot of Dr. Ishaq Bhatti,( La Trobe University, Australia) visiting Professor at the
University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, under President’s Program for Care of Highly Qualified Overseas
Pakistani (PPQP)
Dear Sir,
I joined the university of Agriculture, Faisalabad on Dec 15, 2013 as a PPQP scholar. The joining report
with all the required documents were sent to your office via Prof Asif Rao’s (Direct orate; ORIC on the
18th of December refer: Ms. Aysha’s e-mail and DHL letter to Mr Gulam Rasool, Below is the summary
followed by detail report of the all the activities which I conducted during my consultancy and
professorial PPQP visit.
Summary
Main Research project: 1 Completed—ISI research paper outcome, 2nd started
-Conducted 5 Workshop (1) Introduction to Statistical Programming R (2) For3ecasting Using R (3)
Research Methodology for senior Business Students and staff (revamping Business degree courses)(4)
Islamic Finance Symposium (5) LCWU Staff workshop
-Staff and Research Ph. D Student Individual Consultations
-Conducted a full day session at Lahore College for Women University (LCWU)
Meeting with Academics staff and the VC of LCWU
Detail Activates
A) Main Research Projects
 In my last year visit under HEC’s VSP program, I stared a joint research project entitled,
Forecasting of major crops of Pakistan” with Prof Dr. Rao Asif Ali Khan, Prof Ashfaq and
dr. M. Akram (Monash University Australia). The Research paper was submitted to ISI
indexed and highly cited journal entitled, research paper was submitted to ISI indexed
and highly cited journal entitled,” The American statistician” the paper is in final stage of
revision which is being done in the light of their comment received from anonymous
refers and the editors. During PPQP’s visit we have revised the paper as result of our
face to face discussions with the co-researchers; Prof Asif, Prof Ashfaq and Dr. Akram
(Monash University Australia) for addressing comments of reviews and associate editor.
 In PPQP visit, we also started a new paper based on a project “ hierarchical forecasting
of district level major crops of Pakistan” Dr. Ashfaq Managed to get relevant data, Dr
Akram did R Programming, I used some forecasting methods while Dr. Asif Rao helped
with associated research work which enhanced the conceptual part of the into a great
project based research paper. Now, the research project is in good shape and
progressing relatively faster than expected with draft paper will hopefully be ready by
the end March 2014. In this project we explore the hierarchical nature of various
agriculture crop time series of Pakistan related to production at district level and
produce short-term forecasts for crop time series. The data and forecasts are organized
in a hierarchy based on disaggregating the data according to the division and sub-district
level (geographical regions). We consider five approaches to hierarchical forecasting:
two variations of the top-down approach, the bottom-up method, a newly proposed
top-down approach where top-level forecasts are disaggregated according to the
forecasted proportions of lower level series, and a recently proposed optimal
combination approach introduced by Hyndman et al. (2011).
Hyndman Rj, Ahmed RA, Athanasepoulos G, Shang HL(2011). Optimal combination forecasts for
hierarchical time series.” Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Vol 55, page 2579-2589.
B) Conducted workshops on r and forecasting
 Workshop 1: Deliver two day’s workshop on Introduction to statistical software R to
students and staff from various from various departments. R I an integrated suite of
software facilities for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display. R is very
much a vehicle for newly developing methods of interactive data analysis. Above all it is
free-ware.
 Workshop 2: Deliver a comprehensive three days workshop on Applied Forecasting
for Business and Economics to students and staff from various department. I this
workshop, I discussed, in detail, the staff from various aspects of applied forecasting
such as Review of Basic time Series and Forecasting Techniques, Basic Forecasting Tools,
Smoothing and Box Jenkins Methods and Forecasting. We use R software for all practical
computations. The workshop was designed for analysts who want to make their own
forecasts from past data, or who want to assess the effectiveness of camping or other
factor on the level of business activity.
Staff and Research Students Consultation
1. I had interactive session/discussion with some of the staff members and research
students (Ph.D) of the institute regarding their ongoing research activities and shared
knowledge with them. The suggestion regarding research activities were warmly
welcomed by the staff and research students. The minutes of our meeting with staff and
research students are attached herewith.
2. Discussed and planned some possible future works that could works that could possible
attract research grants. Proposed couple of joint research projects with young staff at
ORIC and Economics Research Centre.
3. Draft of project will be prepared and forwarded to Prof. Dr. Asif, Prof Dr Ashfaq and Prof
Dr. AKram for their comments and suggestions.
Workshop 3:
Research methodology for senior Business Student and Staff
(revamping Business degree courses)
Deliver two days workshop at the institute of business management Sciences (IBMS) for
senior business students and the 2nd day was devoted to staff training and revising
existing and developing new business degree course structure to cater the need of new
businesses and industry in Faisalabad region.
Workshop 4: “International Symposium on Islamic Banking in emerging economies”
Deliver 1 full day workshop on Islamic Finance in conjunction with the local industry’
Meezan Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Akhuwat and Faisalabad Chamber of commerce
president Mr. Sohail. Including me, all three representators were the main speakers of
the symposium. The symposium was chaired by the VC UAF. Some of the news paper
cuttings are posted below.
Workshop 5:
(LCWU).
Conducted a full day session at Lahore College for Women University
On the request of LCWU to UAF, we visited LCWU on Jan 08, 2014 and conducted a full
day session which was attended by staffs (including Dean and head of various
departments) and students and were warmly welcomed.
Meeting with Academic
I also had a productive and positive discussion with several other faculty members and postgraduate
students, and shared ides and knowledge with them. We also decided to do joint future research work
for internationally reputed and ISI index journals.
At the end, I would also like to thank to VC Prof Iqrar Khan, Prof Asif (Director, ORIC) and Prof M. Ashfaq
(Director, Institute of Economics) for their hospitality. Thanks are also due to Prof Sultan Adil for
organizing lunches for the workshop participants and tea/coffee with biscuits curing the breaks. I am
also thank full of all those who worked very hard in the back ground to organized these events Dr. Gafar,
Dr Mehdi, Prof Munir Ahmed, Dr Sehar, and two new academic young scholars with whom I have
submitted the grant application (names are excluded due to grant assessment confidentiality)
I would also like to thank to the directorate off PPAP for the funding and providing me this opportunity
to work with esteemed academics and the best academic award winner UAF which progressing well and
achieving below 200 ranked universities under the leadership of Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmed khan, the CV
of UAF. I would be happy to continue collaborating with the UAF staff and postgraduate students in joint
research projects and publication. Off course in our publication initial findings from PPQP will be
acknowledged.
Thank You.
Dr. Ishaq Bhattii.
A symposium and workshop on the trends and challenges of Islamic Banking & finance
in the emerging Economies
University of agriculture, Faisalabad:
Since its inception in 1960, after being formed by up-gradation of former Punjab Agricultural College and
research institute, Lyallpur (established in 1906 ) university of Agriculture Faridabad (UAF) has
contributed in providing quality research and education, along with offering employment and economics
gains to country. Recently, under the leadership of our worthy vice-chancellor Prof Dr. Iqrer Ahmad
Khan (S.I) UAF was ranked among the top 100 universities and achieved 98th position.
Institute of Business Management Sciences:
The department of Business Management Sciences (DBMS) started functioning by instituting MBAregular (2 Year) and M.Com (2 Year) degree programs in December, 1997. In 1998 MBA (Executive)
classes were stated for the benefit of the working professionals who possessed a minimum of two year,
experience after graduation. The Institute Business Management Sciences (IBMS) was established by
merging the department of marketing and agribusiness, Department of Business Management Sciences
and WTO Cell in February, 2011. IBMS aims at imparting education in the fields of management,
Agribusiness, marketing, Human Resource management, finance and information technology. The
institute offer degree program at undergraduate and post-graduate levels and prepares students for
managerial position in the agribusiness and industrial sectors of country. IBMS seeks to identify and
remove restraints on the student’s full participation, so that individuals may explore their capacities and
interests and may develop their full intellectual and human potential to face the challenges of
professional life.
Workshop overview:
Soon after global financial criss(GFC) of 2007, Islamic Finance (IF) industry got momentum to provide
alternative and ethical financial investment solution to the world. The objective of his workshop is
enhance basics of IF understanding to students and financiers. The workshop connects IF ideas across all
aspects of economic, social and academic behaviors as result of GFC. It attempts to compare IF practices
in Pakistan and Australia. A case study of Pakistan based on Akhuwat experience and Muslim minority
country Australia. It presents the brief history of IF since 1970’s till to date, as IF is being practiced now
globally over 75 countries with more than 550 financial institutions. Under GFC it attracts double digit
growth and higher record return within the class of ethical investments.