Diether Ocampo (Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) Alumni, Harvard Conference, Boston), Aleem Guiapal (HPAIR Alumni and the first filipino paper presenter at HPAIR Harvard Conference), and Arif Hasan (Lahore, HPAIR Alumni, Academic Conference in Kuala Lumpur) had their paper abstract admitted for paper presentation in the Oxford Said Business School Fifth Asia Pacific Retail Conference in Hongkong on August 25 – 27, 2009.

Their paper titled “Retail Trends Among Small and Medium Sized Enterprise in Pakistan and the Philippines : A Comparative Study to Sustain Local Market in Asia” intends to address the problem on how to sustain the local market in Asia using the retails trends of small and medium sized enterprise. In particular, this will highlight a comparative study of retail trends in the Philippines and in Pakistan.

This is the Fifth in the conference series on retailing in the Asia Pacific region organized by he Oxford Institute of Retail Management at Saїd Business School, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Hong Kong Retail Technology Industry Association Industry Association. It aims to bring together academics and practitioners, expanding relationships and the development and sharing of knowledge. Previous conference venues were: Tokyo (March 2000), Beijing (October 2002), Seoul (March 2005), Bangkok (September 2007).

Diether (while in work in progress with this paper) and his stint with TV series in ABS-CBN, still manages to jointly support other development projects including the Mindanao Youth Speak (MYSPEAK) of the Young Moro Professionals Network where he serves as adviser in economic affairs. Aleem serves as project director of MYSPEAK.