CSEP Annual Report 2023

Saturday, December 21

India In Asia: Deeper Engagement

New Industrial Policies: Asian Perspectives

March 1-3, 2024, Neemrana Fort-Palace

India in Asia: Deeper Engagement

Download Compendium

Download Agenda

In 2023, the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), initiated an annual conference—India in Asia: Deeper Engagement. These conferences are designed to help deepen the current and future engagement between India and Asia. They are aimed at building and deepening intellectual engagement among experts who have government, academic, private sector or think-tank experience across the Asian region spanning South, Southeast, and East Asia. The focus is on geo-economic issues along with inter-weaving relationships with political and strategic developments.

The theme chosen for the second India in Asia: Deeper Engagement conference, held in March 2024 was New Industrial Policy: Asian Perspectives.

Industrial policy trends in developing and advanced economies raise questions of central importance for policymakers in Asia. What explains the recent explosion of industrial policies in the advanced economies? How effective have industrial policies in Asia been in achieving their stated objectives? What have been the cross-border consequences of industrial policies in Asia? What should be their response to these emerging policy developments in the advanced economies? Is there a new economic growth and development paradigm that needs to be discussed in the Asian context?

The second India in Asia: Deeper Engagement conference discussed these issues and much more. The conference was held on March 1-3, 2023 at the Neemrana Fort-Palace, Rajasthan.

There were five sessions, apart from an opening and closing session. The sessions were as follows:

Opening Session: Continuing India’s Engagement with Asia
Session I: Geopolitical Rivalry and Use of Industrial Policy as a Strategic Weapon
Session II: New Industrial Policies: How are They Different From Those That Promoted Growth in Asia?
Session III: New Industrial Policies and Geo-economic Fragmentation: Implications for Trade and Global Value Chains
Session IV: Climate Change, Decarbonisation, Energy Transition: Options for New Industrial Policies?
Session V: New Growth Policy Paradigms for Asia in a Fragmenting Global Economy: Impact of New Industrial Policies
Closing Session: Further Engagement: Looking Into the Future

Details about each session are available in the Conference Agenda and the Conference Compendium.

Featured Speakers

S. Jaishankar

Minister of External Affairs, Government of India

Bibek Debroy

Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India

Mari Elka Pangestu

Former Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Republic of Indonesia

Arsenio M. Balisacan

Secretary, National Economic and Development Authority, Philippines

Shyam Saran

Danny Quah

Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics

Vikram Singh Mehta

Chairman and Distinguished Fellow

Rakesh Mohan

President and Distinguished Fellow

Laveesh Bhandari

S. Jaishankar

Minister of External Affairs, Government of India

S. Jaishankar is India’s External Affairs Minister since May 30, 2019. He is a Member of the Upper
House (Rajya Sabha) of India’s Parliament from the state of Gujarat.

He was Foreign Secretary from 2015-18; Ambassador to the United States (2013-15); China
(2009-2013); and the Czech Republic (2000-2004). He was High Commissioner to Singapore
(2007-2009).

He has also served in other diplomatic assignments in Embassies in Moscow, Colombo, Budapest
and Tokyo, as well in the Ministry of External Affairs and the President’s Secretariat. He was also
President – Global Corporate Affairs at Tata Sons Private Limited from May 2018.

He is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College at the University of Delhi. He has a Master’s in Political
Science and an MPhil and PhD in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
He is a recipient of the Padma Shri award in 2019 and has written a widely acclaimed best-selling
book: The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, which was published in 2020.

Bibek Debroy

Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India

Bibek Debroy is an economist and was educated at the Ramakrishna Mission School,
Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics; and Trinity College,
Cambridge. Presently, he is Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EACPM), and Chancellor, Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, Government
of Maharashtra. He has worked at Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83); Gokhale Institute of
Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as
the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of
Economic Affairs (1994-95); National Council of Applied Economic Research (1995-96); Rajiv
Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(2005-06); Centre for Policy Research (2007-15); Member, NITI Aayog (2015-19); and President,
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) (2018-22). He has authored/edited several books, papers and
popular articles and has also been a Consulting/Contributing Editor with several newspapers.

He was awarded the Shriram Sanlam Award for Financial Journalism (in 2013); Padma Shri, the
fourth highest civilian award of India (in 2015); D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) by KIIT University (in 2015);
D.Phil. (Honoris Causa) by Amity University (in 2016); D.Phil. (Honoris Causa) by Jagran Lakecity
University (in 2017); D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by University of Engineering and Management
(in 2018); a Lifetime Achievement Award by the US-India Business Summit (in 2016); Skoch
Challenger Golden Jubilee Award (in 2017); a Lifetime Achievement Award by Prestige Institute of
Management and Research (in 2018); and “Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar” by Power Brand
(in 2018). He was conferred the title of “Vachaspati” by the Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya
Sanskrit Vidyapeetha (in 2018) and “Sir R.G. Bhandarkar Smriti Puraskara” by the Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune (in 2023).

Mari Elka Pangestu

Former Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Republic of Indonesia

Mari Pangestu was the World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, March 2020 2023. Prior to joining the Bank, Mari Pangestu served as Indonesia’s Minister of Trade from 2004 to 2011 and as Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy from 2011 to 2014. She has a vast experience of over 30 years in academia, second track processes, international organisations and government, working in areas related to international trade, investment and development in multilateral, regional and national settings. She is highly regarded as an international expert on a range of global issues and has served on a number of boards and task forces such as the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC and Commissioner for the Low Carbon Development Initiative of Indonesia as well as an Executive Board Member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). She has also served on the board of a number of private sector companies and is currently a Non-executive Director on the Board of AIA.

Currently, she is a Professor of International Economics at the University of Indonesia and a Board Member of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Senior Fellow at Columbia School of International and Public Affairs; and Honorary Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.

She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Economics from the Australian National University, and her doctorate in economics from the University of California at Davis.

Arsenio M. Balisacan

Secretary, National Economic and Development Authority, Philippines

Arsenio M. Balisacan is presently a member of the Philippine President’s Cabinet, serving as the
government’s Chief Economic Planner and Secretary (minister) of the National Economic and
Development Authority, a post he had previously held from 2012 to 2016. He also served as the
inaugural Chairperson and Chief Executive of the Philippine Competition Commission from 2016
to 2022.

Before his initial Cabinet appointment in 2012, he was Professor and Dean of the University of
the Philippines School of Economics; Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional
Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA); and Undersecretary of the
Department of Agriculture. Before joining the University of the Philippines faculty in 1987, he was
a Research Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, and an economist at the World
Bank in Washington, DC.

He has authored and co-edited seven books and published, both locally and internationally,
close to 100 academic papers and book chapters on various development issues, particularly
in the Philippines and East Asia. He is author and co-editor of the upcoming book Designing
Competition Policy for Economic Development in Asia.
He has advised and consulted with numerous development agencies and multilateral institutions,
including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OECD, ASEAN, and various United Nations
agencies.

He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Hawaii, an MS in Agricultural Economics
from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and a BS in Agriculture (magna cum laude) from
the Mariano Marcos State University

Shyam Saran

Shyam Saran is a former Foreign Secretary (2004-06) and has served as Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Nuclear Affairs and for Climate Change (2006-10). He was Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board (2013-15) and is currently President of the India International Centre. He is the author of 2 books – How India Sees the World and How China Sees India and the World. He is a regular contributor to major Indian newspapers and journals. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011 and decorated with the Spring Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan for his contribution to promoting India-Japan relations.

Danny Quah

Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics

Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics and Dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research on inequality and income mobility characterises the range of experiences across economies to suggest that a single narrative on inequality is unlikely to be correct or helpful. His work on world order takes an economic approach to international systems, studying the supply and demand of world order: what international system do the world’s superpowers wish to provide; what world order does the global community need. Quah is a Commissioner on the Spence-Stiglitz Commission on Global Economic Transformation and on LSE’s Global Economic Governance Commission. He serves on the Executive Committee, International Economic Association; the Advisory Board, LSE IDEAS; the Eminent Advisory Council of the UNDP Bureau for Asia-Pacific; and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council for Geopolitics. He is Vice President at the Economic Society of Singapore. He is the author of The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity.

Vikram Singh Mehta

Chairman and Distinguished Fellow

Vikram Singh Mehta is Chairman and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. He was the Executive Chairman of Brookings India and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution from 2012 to 2020. Prior to that, he was the Chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India (1994-2012); Chief Executive of Shell Markets and Shell Chemicals, Egypt (1992-1993); and Advisor, Strategic Planning to the state-owned company, Oil India (1984-1988). He started his career by joining the Indian Administrative Service in 1978. He resigned from the service in 1980. Vikram is an independent, non-executive, director of Larsen and Toubro Ltd, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Colgate Palmolive India Ltd, Apollo Tyres, Hindustan Times and Jubilant Foods. He is also on the Board of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company. Vikram is on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; the Global Advisory Board of Macro Advisory partners; and the Board of Governors of the Deen Dayal University of Petroleum. He was the recipient of Asia House’s “Businessman of the Year” award for 2010. He also received the Asia Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability’s Award for “Best Independent Director” in India for 2016.

Rakesh Mohan

President and Distinguished Fellow

Rakesh Mohan is President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. He was most recently Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University and was also Professor in the Practice of International Economics and Finance at the School of Management at Yale University, 2010-12. He also served as Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University in 2009. Mohan was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He has been closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process from the late 1980s. He was Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund; Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Secretary, Economic Affairs, and Chief Economic Adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance; and Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Industry. In October 2021, he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM).
He has authored three books on urban economics and urban development; two on monetary policy: Monetary Policy in a Globalized Economy: A Practitioner’s View (2009), and Growth with Financial Stability: Central Banking in an Emerging Market. His most recent book (edited) is India Transformed: 25 Years of Economic Reforms. He has a BSc (Eng) from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London (1969), a BA from Yale University (1971) and an MA and PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has been leading
climate change and sustainability research at CSEP. Dr Bhandari has published
widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and
social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He received
his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best
Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University
and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of the Journal of Emerging Market
Finance and worked at the National Council of Applied Economic Research
(NCAER), New Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has
built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics and digital
domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently
he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how
it will impact the government as well as the economy.

Delegates

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, an economist, and civil servant, was former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Government of India. He joined the Government in 1979 as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, after which he held a series of positions including Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; Commerce Secretary; Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs; Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Member of the Planning Commission; and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. In 2001, he was appointed as the first Director of the newly created Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund. He resigned from that position in 2004 to take up the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission which he held from 2004 to 2014.

Mr Ahluwalia has been a key figure in Indian economic policy. He writes on various aspects of development economics and has been published in prominent Indian and international journals and books. He co-authored
Re-distribution with Growth: An Approach to Policy, which, published in 1975, was a path-breaking book on income distribution. In February 2020, he published his book, Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years, an insider’s account of policymaking from 1985 to 2014.

For his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service, he was conferred the prestigious ‘Padma Vibhushan’ in 2011, India’s 2nd highest civilian award for exceptional and distinguished service.

Mr Ahluwalia graduated from Delhi University and holds an MA and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Dewi Fortuna Anwar

Dewi Fortuna Anwar

Dewi Fortuna Anwar is a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI); a Research Professor at the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), formerly known as the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI); and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Habibie Center (THC). From 2010-2017 Dewi served as a Deputy Secretary to the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia. Dewi was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore from 2017-2018, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University in 2007. She has written widely on Indonesia’s foreign policy, and ASEAN regional political and security issues. Dewi sits and has sat on several national and international advisory boards including the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) since 2019; the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) from 2010-2020; and the UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2008-2012. She obtained her PhD from Monash University, Melbourne, while her MA and BA (Hons) were from SOAS, University of London.
Muhamad Chatib Basri

Muhamad Chatib Basri

Muhamad Chatib Basri is a former Minister of Finance of Indonesia. Previously he was the Chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board. He is now the Chairman of the PT Bank Mandiri Tbk. and Chairman of the PT XL-Axiata Tbk. Dr. Basri is a co-Chair of the Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (FIF PPR), hosted by the World Bank with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO). He is a member of various international advisory councils including the High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth formed by the World Bank and the IMF in the face of the dual crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change; the World Bank Advisory Council on Gender and Development; Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance for COP27; Group Eminent Personalities of the OECD Development Centre; and the Advisory Board, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, the Australian National University. He is also member of the Governing Board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He teaches at the Department of Economics, University of Indonesia and co-founded CReco Research, a Jakarta-based economic consulting firm. Dr. Basri was Ash Centre Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School (2015-2016); Pacific Leadership Fellow at the Centre on Global Transformation, University of California at San Diego (2016); NTUC Professor of International Economic Relation, RSIS, NTU, Singapore (2016); and Thee Kian Wie Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Australian National University (2016-2017). His expertise is International Trade, Macroeconomics and Political Economy. He is the author of a number of papers published in international journals and actively writes for various leading newspaper and magazines in Indonesia.
Amita Batra

Amita Batra

Amita Batra is Professor of Economics and former Chairperson of the Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Professor Batra was Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney in October 2018 and Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. She has been visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. Professor Batra is a member of the Advisory Group for G20 Finance Track Agenda, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India (January 2022-December 2023). She is on the editorial committee/board of several national/international journals. Professor Batra is also an occasional columnist for the Business Standard, a leading financial daily in India. She has written and published extensively on economic integration, preferential trade agreements and India’s trade policy issues. Her latest book is titled India’s Trade Policy in the 21st Century, Routledge, London, 2022. Professor Batra has an MA, MPhil, PhD from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.
Jaimini Bhagwati

Jaimini Bhagwati

Jaimini Bhagwati is a 1976-batch Indian Foreign Service officer and is also a financial sector specialist. He was appointed as India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 2011. Immediately prior to this appointment, Bhagwati was India’s ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg. He was Joint Secretary (Capital Markets and Pension Reforms) in the Ministry of Finance from 1999-2002. He worked for eleven years in the World Bank Treasury in Washington DC and his responsibilities included issuance of IBRD bonds and pricing of associated derivatives transactions.

Bhagwati did his Master’s in Physics from St. Stephen’s college in Delhi and holds a Master’s in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Tufts University. In 2019, he authored The Promise of India: How Prime Ministers Nehru to Modi Shaped the Nation (1947–2019). This book offers a fascinating analysis on the decision making of prime ministers since independence and the consequent economic and foreign policy fallout. Bhagwati has been writing a monthly column in the Business Standard newspaper since 2005.

He was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) from 2014 till end-2018. He is currently a Board member of Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) Limited and Chairman of Trustee IDFC Asset Management Company.
Kirida Bhaopichitr

Kirida Bhaopichitr

Kirida Bhaopichitr joined the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), a leading independent think tank in Thailand, in 2015. She is currently the Director of TDRI Economic Intelligence Service (EIS) which is TDRI’s corporate membership program. Dr. Kirida leads the preparation of content for the monthly seminars for corporate members on issues that are of high relevance and interest for business. Her specialisation spans monitoring and analysing developments of the global and Thai economies which includes the macroeconomic environment, geopolitical developments, megatrends, demographic changes, and technological development issues. Dr. Kirida is also currently an independent director on the Government Housing Bank’s board of directors and on the Khon Kaen University Council.

Prior to this, Dr. Kirida was a Senior Economist and the Country Economist for Thailand of the World Bank Group where she worked from 1999 to 2015. Dr. Kirida’s work on Thailand included monitoring and assessing Thailand’s economic developments, investment climate, competitiveness, impact of the 2011 floods in Thailand, and the reforms in the public sector. Dr. Kirida was the main author of the World Bank’s bi-annual Thailand Economic Monitor (2003-2015), the most downloaded and widely cited World Bank publication on Thailand.
At the World Bank, she regularly contributed to the World Bank’s bi-annual report on economic development, the East Asia and the Pacific Update. In 2010, Dr. Kirida spent a year at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC, where she worked on regional issues in East Asia and authored a paper on estimating remittance trends in South Asia.

A recognised fixture in economic and business circles in Thailand, she appears regularly in the media and speaks at public and private high-level forums and executive courses in Thailand and overseas. She also gave a TED talk at a large TEDx event in Thailand in 2018.

Dr. Kirida holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University (USA).
Rajesh Chadha

Rajesh Chadha

Rajesh Chadha is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). He was formerly a Professor & Research Director at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and before that, an Associate Professor of Economics at Hindu College, University of Delhi. He has worked extensively on regional and multilateral issues of international trade. His other areas of interest include foreign direct investment, agricultural markets, and non-fuel minerals and mining in India. He has provided research support to the Indian government on multiple projects. He has also played a key role in the research projects sponsored by the governments of India, Australia, the UK, and various international organisations.

He was the Managing Editor of Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, NCAER’s international, peer-reviewed journal, from 2012 to 2019. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Michigan, Melbourne, and Monash and Visiting Faculty at many prestigious academic and research institutes in India. He was nominated as GTAP Research Fellow (2004-2007) by the Global Trade Analysis Project, Purdue University, USA.

He received his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri is the Director of Carnegie India. His research focuses on the diplomatic history of South Asia, contemporary security issues, and the increasingly important role of emerging technologies in diplomacy and statecraft. He works on comparative models of cross-border data flows and how data is treated by national capitals in inter-state and multilateral negotiations. He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947 (published in the UK by Hurst, in 2013, and in the US and South Asia by Oxford University Press and Harper Collins, respectively, in 2014). He is the editor of War and Peace in Contemporary India (published in the UK by Routledge). His research has been published in scholarly journals like International History Review; Diplomacy and Statecraft; Journal of Strategic Studies; International Affairs; RUSI Journal; India Review; Defense Studies, along with other academic and policy-focused journals. He is also an occasional commentator on issues of public policy in the media. 19 He has served as a Lecturer and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London from 2009 to 2022 (on leave since 2018). In 2012, he established the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office’s (FCDO) Diplomatic Academy for South Asia at King’s College London. He served as its Founding Director from 2013 to 2022. He is also a Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University, New Delhi. He previously taught at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College. He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.
Yoon-Je Cho

Yoon-Je Cho

Yoon-Je Cho is currently a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Bank of Korea. He served as the Korean Ambassador to the UK (2005-2008) and the Korean Ambassador to the United States (2017-2019). He also served as the Chief Economic Advisor to President (2003-2005) and worked as senior economist at World Bank and IMF (1984-1993) and taught economics at Sogang University.
Byung-il Choi

Byung-il Choi

Byung-il Choi has been the President of Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS) since September 2020. He is also a professor and the former Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University. As a renowned scholar in the field of international trade and US-China relations, he took various leadership roles, including President of Korea Economic Research Institute (2011-2014), a think tank representing the Korean business sector. He served as the President of the Korea International Economic Association; the President of the Korea Association of Negotiation Studies; and the President of the Korean Association of Trade and Industry Studies. In December 2023, he was elected as an international fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Prior to joining academia, he was the Korean chief negotiator for the WTO basic telecom negotiations (1994-1997) and trade negotiator for service agreement and the telecom annex at the Uruguay Round, the Korea-US telecom agreement, and the Korea-EU telecom agreement. He led the Korean initiative of the AsiaPacific Information Infrastructure (APII) at the 1995 APEC Summit. His books include Politics of East Asian Free Trade Agreements: Unveiling the Asymmetry between Korea and Japan (2021); US-China Competition: Who Will Rule the World? (2019); Northeast Asia in 2030: Forging Ahead or Drifting Away (2018); China, New Paradigm (2016); The KORUS FTA: Against All Odds (2006); and The Success and Failure of Trade Negotiations of Korea (2004).

He received his BA from Seoul National University and PhD in Economics from Yale.
Nitin Desai

Nitin Desai

Nitin Desai was a national and international civil servant and a global advocate for sustainable development. After teaching at two UK Universities and serving briefly as an economic consultant he began his public service career with the Planning Commission in 1973, served as Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and went on to become Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance in 1988.

At the international level he was a Senior Adviser, the Brundtland Commission, where he introduced the concept of sustainable development. He joined the UN in 1990 as Deputy Secretary General of Development (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992) and was appointed as Under Secretary General at the UN in New 21 York in 1993 and stayed in that post till 2003. During this period, he led the work on sustainable development and in other economic and social areas.

After his retirement, Nitin Desai was appointed as a Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Internet Governance and in that capacity chaired the group which organised the annual Intent Governance Forum, a position he occupied till 2010. In July 2004, he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

After his retirement, he has been involved in a variety of public policy activities, nationally and internationally, dealing with economic policy, climate change, energy, environment, internet governance and security. He writes a monthly column in a daily newspaper, the Business Standard.
Naushad Forbes

Naushad Forbes

Naushad is co-Chairman of Forbes Marshall, India’s leading process and energy efficiency company. He is Chairman, Ananta Aspen Centre, and Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER). Forbes Marshall helps Industry build and sustain highly efficient plants by reducing waste, optimising process and energy efficiency, and complying with regulatory requirements. Forbes Marshall has consistently ranked as a great place to work and aspires to be a multinational with Indian roots. Naushad was an occasional teacher at Stanford University from 1987 to 2004 where he developed courses on Technology in Newly Industrialising Countries. He received his Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD Degrees from Stanford. Naushad is on the board of several educational institutions and public companies. Naushad has long been an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and was president of CII for 2016–17. He is a founding member of Nayanta University, a full-service university opening in 2024, spearheaded by CII. Naushad’s book, The Struggle and the Promise: Restoring India’s Potential, was published by Harper Collins in 2022.
Akio Fujii

Akio Fujii

Since he joined in 1985, Akio Fujii has held various positions with Nikkei, including being the Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance correspondent, New York Bureau Correspondent, Chief Correspondent for economic affairs at Washington Bureau from 1998 to 2002, London-based Senior Writer from 2009 to 2011 and Washington Bureau Chief from 2012 to 2014.

He has also served as Senior Editor for International News Department; Editorin-Chief for Nikkei Asian Review from 2015 to 2016; Senior Managing Editor, Head of Global News Operations from 2016 to 2017; and Senior Editorial Writer from 2017 to 2020.

He covered issues related to global governance, economic policy and international finance. His main publications are: G20-The Great Game in 21st 22 Century (2011, Nikkei); Yellen’s Federal Reserve (2013, Nikkei); Introduction for Japan’s Economy (2018, Nikkei); Ambition of Libra (2019, Nikkei); New Introduction for Japan’s Economy (2021, Nikkei); and The Bubble of Justice and Japan’s Economy (2023, Nikkei).

Fujii obtained his BA in Economics from Waseda University in Tokyo.
Chetan Ghate

Chetan Ghate

Chetan Ghate is the Director of the Institute of Economic Growth in New Delhi. He is also a Professor of Economics in the Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) – Delhi, since 2003. He received his PhD in Economics from Claremont Graduate University, California, in 1999. He completed his MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics in 1995. His research focus is in the fields of macroeconomics, monetary economics, economic growth and development, and the Indian macroeconomy. In 2014, he was awarded the Mahalanobis Memorial Gold Medal, given to the best research economist in India under the age of 45.

Chetan has held several visiting faculty positions in India and abroad and has been closely involved with the Reserve Bank of India in an advisory capacity. He was a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) until October 2020. From 2012-2013 he was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor in Macroeconomics at ICRIER (New Delhi). From February 2013 to September 2016, he was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for monetary policy at the Reserve Bank of India. In September 2013, he served as a member of the Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework. Chetan chairs the academic advisory board of the Reserve Bank of India Academy and serves on the editorial board of the RBI Occasional Paper Series.

Chetan is an external affiliate of the Centre for Research in Macroeconomics and Macro-Finance at Swansea University (Wales, UK). He is a member of the CII Economic Affairs Council. He is also a member of the Macro Finance Society.
Shishir Gupta

Shishir Gupta

Shishir Gupta is a Senior Fellow and Chief Operating Officer at CSEP in New Delhi. His work focuses on many aspects of the Indian economy, including economic growth, governance and institutions, urbanisation, and sub-national reforms, among others. Before joining CSEP in August 2020, Shishir was a Fellow with the McKinsey Global Institute for 14 years, where he led multiethnic teams in India and the US on policy research and client studies across multiple domains. He has written widely on these topics in MGI reports and research papers as well as in popular media. He is an economist by education, with an MA and MPhil from the Delhi School of Economics.
Denis Hew

Denis Hew

Denis Hew is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Prior to taking up his current appointment, he was Director of the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU) from 2011 to 2022. PSU is the research arm of the APEC, which is a regional grouping that promotes trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation in the Asia-Pacific region. He also spent two years in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its Southeast Asia department, where he managed technical assistance programs on regional cooperation and integration.

From 2001 to 2008, Denis Hew was Senior Fellow and Regional Economic Studies Coordinator at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Singapore, which is one of the region’s oldest and most established research institutes. During his time at ISEAS Singapore, he was also the Managing Editor of the ASEAN Economic Bulletin, an academic journal that focuses on policy-relevant economic issues in Southeast Asia.

Denis Hew is an economist by training and holds a Bachelors (Hons) in Economics from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom and a Master’s and PhD in Finance from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
Yusuke Hongo

Yusuke Hongo

Yusuke Hongo is a General Manager, Corporate Marketing Division of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) and is responsible for global marketing strategy and business intelligence.

He joined MOL in December 2008 from the manufacturing industry and started his career in the Tanker Division. He engaged in the energy business until March 2023. He was in charge of the LPG carrier business for 8 years, including secondment to subsidiary in Singapore responsible for chartering and operation. Then he took on the role of research and business development in the Energy Business Strategy Division for 3 years. He carried out energyrelated new business development, such as ethane carrier, off-shore wind turbine installation, etc. Then, he led the LNG carrier team, mainly in charge of Chinese business and took the role of Deputy General Manager of Liquefied Gas Unit2 which handles overseas LNG projects.

In April 2023, he was appointed as head of the Corporate Marketing Division.
Kristy Hsu

Kristy Hsu

Kristy Tsun-Tzu Hsu is the Director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center (TASC), Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), Taiwan, and NonResident Senior Research Fellow at Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. Her areas of research interests include: international trade policy and economic/ trade law, economic integration, Southeast Asia study and dispute settlement. She obtained her J.D. from the School of Law, Soochow University, Taiwan. She provides consultation to the Taiwan government on external economic policy,and is involved in the government’s WTO and FTA negotiations by 24 participating in government-commissioned research projects and providing consultation and has led research projects of the joint/separate Economic Cooperation Agreement (ECA) feasibility study with a number of countries. She also serves as Committee member at the Gender Equality Committee, Executive Yuan; Expert Committee member at the Overseas Community Affairs Council, Executive Yuan; Committee member at International Affair Committee, Taipei City Government; and adviser to a number of business and industrial associations in Taiwan.
Keisuke Iida

Keisuke Iida

Keisuke Iida is Dean and Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo. His area of specialisation is International Political Economy. His major publications include International Monetary Cooperation among the United States, Japan and Germany (1999); Legalization and Japan: The Politics of WTO Dispute Settlement (2006); International Political Economy (in Japanese, 2007); The Future of Economic Hegemony (in Japanese, 2013); and Japan’s Security and Economic Dependence on China and the United States (2017). He has published numerous articles in international journals such as International Organization, Public Choice, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and so on. His research interests include the politics of trade, the political economy of financial crises, and the interactions between security and economics. He is President of the Japan Association of International Relations (JAIR). He received his PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. He formerly taught at Princeton University and Aoyama Gakuin University. He has been a pre-doctoral fellow at Brookings Institution; a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley; and an academic associate in the Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University.
Takatoshi Ito

Takatoshi Ito

Takatoshi Ito, Professor, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor in the summer months at GRIPS Tokyo, has taught extensively both in the United States and Japan since finishing his PhD in Economics at Harvard University in 1979. He taught at the University of Minnesota; Hitotsubashi University; and the University of Tokyo, and he was President of the Japanese Economic Association in 2004.

Ito served as Senior Advisor in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund, 1994-97, as Deputy Vice Minister for International Affairs at the Ministry of Finance of Japan, 1999-2001 and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, 2006-08. He is an author of The Japanese Economy, 2nd edition, and many other books and refereed journal articles. He was awarded the National Medal with Purple Ribbon for his excellent academic achievement.
Emmanuel Jimenez

Emmanuel Jimenez

Emmanuel Jimenez is Director General, Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Reporting to ADB’s Board of Directors, his responsibilities include assessing ADB’s development effectiveness, as well as providing lessons to inform ADB operations. Prior to joining ADB, he worked as an Independent Consultant who provides advice and conducts research and training on evaluation, economics, development management, education and social protection programs. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director and CEO of 3ie. In this role, he led and conducted impact evaluations and evidence reviews. He provided strategic direction to the organisation as it championed the generation and use of evidence to guide decisions regarding policies and programs that improve lives in low and middle-income countries. Previously, he had worked for 30 years in the World Bank Group (WBG) and held several senior management roles across several departments such as the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG); the South Asia, East Asia, and Pacific Groups; and the Policy Research Department.

Emmanuel Jimenez was a faculty member of the Economics Department of Western University in London, Canada. Throughout his career, he has published extensively, including articles in peer-reviewed professional journals, books and reports on economic development and served as managing editor of several international development journals.

Born in the Philippines, he is a national of Canada. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from Brown University in the United States, a Master’s degree in Economics from University of Toronto in Canada, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from McGill University in Canada.
Sunjay J. Kapur

Sunjay J. Kapur

Sunjay J. Kapur is the Chairman of Sona BLW Precision Forgings Limited (Sona Comstar), a global mobility technology company founded in 1995. Headquartered in Gurugram, India and with nine manufacturing and assembly facilities, R&D centres and engineering capability centres worldwide, the company specialises in automotive systems and components, catering to OEMs and the burgeoning Electric Vehicle market. Sunjay is an influential figure in the automotive industry, serving in various leadership roles, including PastPresident of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India. He is also deeply involved in industry associations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), serving as the Chair to the CII Europe Committee. He is also a member of the Governing Board and Council of CII VLFM (Visionary Leadership for Manufacturing) Programme, the Advisory Board of CII-Triveni Water Institute and a Council Member of the All-India Management Association. Sunjay is also a member of EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) Delhi Chapter. Beyond business, Sunjay is committed to nurturing entrepreneurship and sports development. He notably served as Global Chairman of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and is a Member of the Board of Governors of his alma mater, The Doon School, India. Sunjay holds degrees from the University of Buckingham and Harvard Business School.
Sanjay Kathuria

Sanjay Kathuria

Sanjay Kathuria is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP. He has a vast experience of more than 40 years and is recognised as a pre-eminent thinker and commentator on economic development, growth and integration in South Asia. His research interests and writings have focused on South Asia, economic growth and development, industrial policy and competitiveness, trade and globalisation, regional integration, the economics of small states, and gender issues, among others.

He is also Visiting Expert with the United States Institute of Peace. He teaches in both the US and India, as Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, and Visiting Faculty, Ashoka University. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington, DC.

Earlier, Sanjay Kathuria was Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. He was a Lead Economist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, where he spent 27 years working on South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe, including field assignments in New Delhi and Dhaka. Before joining the World Bank, he was a Fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi, from 1982 to 1992.

He holds a PhD in Economics from Oxford University as an Inlaks Scholar. He graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and completed his Master’s at the Delhi School of Economics.

Apart from many books and reports published at the World Bank, his writings have featured in Foreign Policy, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Daily FT (Sri Lanka), Business Standard, among others.

He is currently working on a new book on The Future of South Asia.
Bilahari Kausikan

Bilahari Kausikan

Bilahari Kausikan is currently Chairman of the Middle East Institute, an autonomous institute of the National University of Singapore. He has spent his entire career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his 37 years in the Ministry, he served in a variety of appointments at home and abroad, including as Ambassador to the Russian Federation; Permanent Representative to the UN in New York; and as the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry. Raffles Institution, the University of Singapore and Columbia University in New York all attempted to educate him.
Deepali Khanna

Deepali Khanna

As the Head of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Asia Regional Office, Deepali Khanna oversees efforts to amplify the Foundation’s impact and initiatives to make opportunities universal and sustainable. She leads the efforts to build and sustain networks with different institutions, leverage financing and 27 collaborations, innovative grants, thought leadership and information on trends driving the Asian continent’s development.

In her role, Deepali was leading engagement with India’s G20 presidency to advance global economic equity, public health, clean energy, and sustainable food systems. Deepali also served as Co-chair of G20 India’s Business20 task force on Financing for Global Economic Recovery and as Co-chair of G7 Japan’s Think7 task force on Development and Economic Prosperity. Deepali is also on the Digital Green Foundation Board.

She regularly writes on issues relevant to sustainable development goals and the importance of South-South cooperation in regional and national publications across Asia, including Forbes Asia, The Straits Times, and The Bangkok Post. She is a regular speaker at regional platforms such as the Asia Venture Philanthropy Network, Philanthropy Asia Summit, and World Sustainable Development Summit, among others.

Prior to joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Deepali held multiple leadership positions at The MasterCard Foundation, Plan International managing operations across several continents.
Renu Kohli

Renu Kohli

Renu Kohli is an economist with research and practitioner experience on macroeconomic policies and issues. She has previously worked with the RBI, the IMF and think tanks including ICRIER and the Institute of Economic Growth. Her work has focused on financial sector liberalisation, capital flows and exchange rate management in emerging markets with special India focus, international macroeconomic coordination, and recently, the macroeconomic impact of decarbonisation in India.

She has been published in refereed journals such as the Review of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Asian Economics, Oxford University Press, IMF Working Papers, RBI Staff papers and contributed to edited volumes. She has exposure to multilateral surveillance including Article IV missions; as short-term expert with IMF Institute, her training missions include courses on financial programming and policies and macroeconomic diagnostics. She has wider engagement with the private financial sector and investors through talks, presentations and consultation on Indian macroeconomic policies. She also serves as an independent director on the board of NCML Ltd and NFIN.
Nagesh Kumar

Nagesh Kumar

Nagesh Kumar is the Director and Chief Executive of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), a New Delhi-based public-funded, policy think tank. Prior to taking up this role in May 2021, Nagesh served as Director at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), headquartered in Bangkok, holding several senior management roles during 2009-21, including as its Chief Economist. Nagesh also serves as 28 the Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Centre (BU/GDPC), Boston, USA.

During 2002-09, Nagesh served as the Director-General of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a policy think tank of the Government of India. He has also served as an Economist at UNU/INTECH (now UNU/MERIT) in Maastricht, the Netherlands during 1993-98. Nagesh has served on the boards of the EXIM Bank of India; the International Centre for Trade & Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Geneva; and the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS), Kathmandu.

Nagesh has researched extensively on different aspects of international trade, investments, technology and sustainable development, resulting in the publication of 18 books and over 120 peer-reviewed papers. An Economics PhD from the Delhi School of Economics, Nagesh is a recipient of the Exim Bank’s first International Trade Research Award and the GDN’s Research Medal.
Keun Lee

Keun Lee

Keun Lee is Distinguished Professor of Seoul National University (economics), a Fellow of the CIFAR (Canada), and the Chairman of the Center for Economic Catch-up. He is also an Editor of Research Policy, and Associate Editor of Industrial and Corporate China. He is the winner of the 2014 Schumpeter Prize for his monograph on Schumpeterian Analysis of Economic Catch-up (2013 Cambridge Univ. Press), and also the 2019 Kapp Prize by EAEPE. He was also awarded the title of EBES Fellow of the Year 2023 by the EBES. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate. Previously, he served as the Vice-Chairman of the National Economic Advisory Council for the chair and President of Korea; as the President of the International Schumpeter Society (2016-18); a member of the Committee for Development Policy of UN (2013-18); and a GFC member of the World Economic Forum (2016-19). He obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. His total citations received is about 13,500 with H-index of 55 and I-10 index of 145 (Google Scholar).
Nishan de Mel

Nishan de Mel

Nishan de Mel is the Executive Director and Head of Research of Verité Research, a think tank that provides analytical research and advisory services on economic, political and legal issues in Sri Lanka and Asia. He is an economist with extensive academic, policy, and private-sector experience. He has been a Member of the Presidential Task Force on Health Sector Reform; Presidential Committee on Tobacco, Alcohol and Dangerous Drug Regulation; and the National Steering Committee on Social Security. He has also served as the Executive Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) and on the Board of the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, among others. Internationally, Nishan has held several governing, teaching, and research positions, including as Lecturer in Economics at the University of Oxford, UK. His undergraduate degree in Economics is from Harvard University, USA. He earned his Master’s and doctoral degrees in Economics at the University of Oxford where he was a Chevening scholar.
Shivshankar Menon

Shivshankar Menon

Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP, Visiting Professor at Ashoka University and Chair of the Ashoka Centre for China Studies. Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister (2010- 2014); Foreign Secretary of India (2006-2009); and as Ambassador and High Commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). He has served in the mission to the IAEA in Vienna and in the Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai. He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He has published Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy in 2016 and India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present (Brookings Press USA, & Penguin Random House India) in April 2021. Menon has been a Richard Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies at MIT and Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. In 2010, he was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” He attended the Scindia School, Gwalior and St. Stephen’s College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.
Ong Kian-Ming

Ong Kian-Ming

Ong Kian-Ming is Program Director, Philosophy Politics & Economics (PPE), at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. He was a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute from March 2023 to September 2023. He is Senior Adviser to Global Counsel, an international advisory firm with offices in five countries. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA). He is an adviser for the MalaysiaChina Chamber of Commerce (MCCC) since 2023. He is an adviser for the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM), starting a two-year term from January 2024 to December 2025. He is an adviser for Selangor Digital School/ AI Nustantara, an initiative started by the Selangor state government. He is a member of the Danish Chamber of Commerce (DANCHAM) since 2023.

He is a former two-term Member of Parliament (MP) in Malaysia from 2013 to 2022, representing the Democratic Action Party (DAP). He was the Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) from July 2018 to February 2020.

He is a former Fulbright Scholar and holds a PhD in Political Science from Duke University; an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge; and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. Prior to his political life, he was a Lecturer at UCSI University and a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the Kuala Lumpur office.
Sudipto Mundle

Sudipto Mundle

Sudipto Mundle is Chairman of the Board of Centre for Development Studies, India, and serves on the boards of several other organisations. He is also Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Public Policy, New Delhi, and NonResident Senior Fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Formerly he was an Emeritus Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). He was also a member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, India, the erstwhile Monetary Policy Advisory Committee of the Reserve Bank of India and the National Statistical Commission, where he also acted as Chairman.

He spent much of his career until 2008 at the Asian Development Bank, Manila, where he held several positions including that of a Director in the Strategy and Policy Department as his final assignment. In his earlier career in India, he served in a number of academic institutions, including the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum; and NIPFP, New Delhi, where he was the Reserve Bank Chair Professor. He was an Economic Adviser in India’s Ministry of Finance from 1986 to 1989.

Sudipto Mundle graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, in 1969 and has a PhD in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University, USA; a Joan Robinson Memorial Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge University, UK; and has also had visiting assignments at the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague and the Japan Foundation, Tokyo.

His current research interests include development economics, fiscal and monetary policy, macroeconomic modelling, forecasting and governance. He has published several books and papers in professional journals. He is also a regular columnist for the financial newspaper Mint and a life member of the Indian Econometric Society.
Vikram Nehru

Vikram Nehru

Vikram Nehru is Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Honorary Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford University. Between 2016 and 2023, he was Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at SAIS, where he taught courses on political economy and development economics with a focus on East, South, and Southeast Asia. Between 2011 and 2016, he served as the Chair in Southeast Asian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Prior to that, he worked for three decades at the World Bank, including in a number of senior management positions. His last position there was Chief Economist and Director for poverty reduction, economic management, and private and financial sector development for East Asia and the Pacific. In this capacity, he advised East Asian governments on economic and governance issues, including macroeconomic management, public sector and public financial management, financial and private sector development, sovereign debt management and debt restructuring, and poverty reduction. His articles have appeared in numerous journals, he has contributed to several books, and he has written many op-eds and articles for leading newspapers, economic journals, and think tanks.
Nitin Pai

Nitin Pai

Nitin Pai is Co-founder and Director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy. His current research includes information warfare, the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. He teaches international relations, public policy and ethical reasoning at Takshashila’s graduate programmes.

He is the author of Nitopadesha – Moral Tales for Good Citizens (Penguin Random House 2023) and the co-editor of India’s Marathon: Reshaping the Post-Pandemic World Order, published in 2020. He is currently a columnist with Mint, Sakal and The Print.

He spent more than a decade as a technology policymaker in the Singapore government. Earlier in his career, Pai worked on satellite design, undersea cable projects and RF communications.

He was a gold medalist from the National University of Singapore’s LKY School of Public Policy; an undergraduate scholar at Nanyang Technological University (NTU); and an alum of National College, Bangalore.
Umesh Pandey

Umesh Pandey

Umesh Pandey joined the Royal Thai Government under Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin after the government was formed in October 2023. Currently, Umesh is serving as Vice Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Prior to joining the government services, Umesh worked in the field of financial services and journalism for more than two decades. Umesh joined the government sector after having served as Executive Director at Nomura Singapore Ltd., the banking unit of Japanese financial powerhouse – Nomura, and at French banking giant BNP Paribas.

Prior to joining the financial sector, Umesh had a short stint in politics in 2018 when the party that he had joined got dissolved days before the March 2019 General Election by Thailand’s Constitutional Court for nominating a Prime Minister candidate that the court said was ‘inappropriate’.

Umesh had entered politics in 2018 after 23 years as a journalist with his last position in the journalism field as the Editor-in-Chief of Bangkok Post, Thailand’s leading English-language media house. After his resignation from Bangkok Post, Umesh was instrumental in giving his input in helping a startup team to launch an online media platform – Thai Enquirer, which has over the past 3+ years managed to become Thailand’s 2nd highest read English language media outlet.
Raden Pardede

Raden Pardede

Since 2014, Raden Pardede has been Senior Adviser to Coordinator Minister of Economic Affairs of Indonesia. He is also Executive Secretary of the COVID-19 Committee and National Economic Recovery Program (KPC PEN) of Indonesia since 2020. He is Founder and Managing Partner of CReco Research Institute. He is also Independent Commissioner of PT Bank Central Asia Tbk, the largest private commercial bank in Indonesia. Since 2022, he has been Independent Commissioner of BliBli.com (an e-commerce company). Raden Pardede, Gustav F. Papanek and Suahasil Nazara published The Economic Choices Facing the Next President in 2014. He has a PhD in Economics from Boston University, USA and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Bandung Institute of Technology.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Professor of International Relations at Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of political science and Senior Fellow at its Institute of Security and International Studies in Bangkok. He completed degrees at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, with a PhD from London School of Economics which won the UK’s best dissertation prize in 2002. Thitinan has held visiting positions at Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, University of Victoria in New Zealand, and Yangon University, and currently serves on several editorial boards of academic journals, including Journal of Democracy.

He has authored a host of articles, books, book chapters and over 1,000 opinion articles in media such as Project Syndicate, The Bangkok Post, The Straits Times, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, International New York Times, and Financial Times. As an analyst on Thailand/ASEAN-Southeast Asia, his comments and views have appeared regularly in international media, including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and NHK, among others.

Prior to his academic and think tank career, Thitinan worked for the BBC World Service and the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. His work focuses on the comparative politics and geopolitics/geoeconomics of ASEAN and the Indo-Pacific in view of the US-China rivalry and competition. In 2015, he was recognised for excellence in opinion writing by the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA). In March 2018, he was appointed ASEAN@50 Fellow by New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs & Trade and, in May 2019, he was selected as Australia-ASEAN Fellow at Sydney’s Lowy Institute. In 2021, he was appointed Senior Advisor for geopolitics with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Selim Raihan

Selim Raihan

Selim Raihan is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and the Executive Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. He is member of the Board of Directors, Global Development Network (GDN). He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK. He possesses vast expertise in empirical research on international trade, economic growth, poverty, labour market, macroeconomic policies, political economy, and climate change issues. He has published a number of journal articles, books, book chapters and working papers. He is the editor of Thinking Aloud – a monthly digest from SANEM. He regularly writes columns in leading English and Bengali dailies in Bangladesh. He has worked for several national and international organisations including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, UNDP, UNESCAP, UNCTAD, IFPRI, the Commonwealth Secretariat, FAO, European Commission, ILO, IDRC, DFID, etc. He has led and has also been a member of several regional and international research projects on trade and regional integration issues. His forthcoming edited volume from the Cambridge University Press is titled Is the Bangladesh Paradox Sustainable?
Janak Raj

Janak Raj

Janak Raj is a Senior Fellow and leads the macroeconomic segment in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP. He also works specifically on fiscal federalism in the health sector, climate finance and multilateral development banks (MDBs) reforms. He is currently also a member of the JM Financial Centre for Financial Research of IIM Udaipur. He has nearly four decades of experience working in the Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services). Janak Raj served as an Executive Director in the Reserve Bank of India and as a member of its statutory Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He also served as Principal Adviser of the Monetary Policy Department and International Department of the RBI and headed its Department of Economic 35 Policy and Research. At the IMF Washington DC, he was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. He served as an RBI nominee director on the Governing Board of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. He has a PhD in Economics from IIT Bombay.
Ajay Singh

Ajay Singh

Ajay Singh is a member of the board of Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) group. As Managing Executive Officer of the company, he is responsible for all the group’s businesses in the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East. He also assists the group in its global energy transition and organisational transformation. Ajay Singh is based in Tokyo, where he has lived for close to 10 years. Between 2014 and 2020, he was special advisor to the chairman of Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., an international energy company owned mainly by the Government of Japan. Earlier, he worked with Shell over a period of 20 years, based in India and then at Shell’s global headquarters in London and The Hague. He was instrumental in creating and managing various oil and gas businesses around the world in partnership with host governments and other energy companies. Ajay Singh is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Manchester Business School and the Walchand College of Engineering.
Anoop Singh

Anoop Singh

Anoop Singh is Distinguished Fellow at CSEP and was Member of India’s Fifteenth
Finance Commission. Among his previous positions, he had a long and illustrious
career at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where his appointments included
being Director of the Asia Pacific Department, Director of the Western Hemisphere
Department, and Director of Special Operations in the Office of the Managing
Director. He was also Special Adviser to then Governors of the Reserve Bank of
India, IG Patel and Dr Manmohan Singh, and has taught at Georgetown University
in Washington DC as an Adjunct Professor.
Amarjeet Sinha

Amarjeet Sinha

Amarjeet Sinha is currently posted as Member, Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB). He was earlier posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021. An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of Bihar Cadre of the 1983 batch, he retired in December 2019 as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. He has 40 years of experience in Government, largely in the rural and social sector. He has had the unique distinction of having played a major role in designing the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (India’s main programme for universal education); and the National Rural Health Mission, in bringing about governance reforms in programmes for rural areas covering livelihoods, employment, housing, social security, skills, urban development and road construction. He also coordinated successfully the work of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to reach seven pro-poor public welfare interventions (LPG, electricity, bank account, life and accident insurance, LED bulbs, and immunisation) to 63,974 large villages with over 50% vulnerable social group population. He also leads the work on research in education for improving learning outcomes, pro bono, with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). Sinha has published eight books on public policy and a large number of articles. He published An India for Everyone – A Path to Inclusive Development, a Harper Collins paperback, in 2013. The Hindi translation of the book, Hum Sab ka Bharat, is also available. His latest book, The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down, was published by Routledge, UK and released on October 26, 2023. He has recently contributed to the Notion Press Book on fifteen Change Makers, The Book of Aspiration. A student of St. Stephen’s College, he topped the Delhi University and is a recipient of the National Talent Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship and the Oxford Cambridge Society of India Scholarship.
Krishna Srinivasan

Krishna Srinivasan

Krishna Srinivasan is the Director of the Asia and Pacific Department (APD) at
IMF. In this capacity, he oversees the institution’s work on all countries in the AsiaPacific region. He was previously a Deputy Director in the Western Hemisphere
Department (WHD), where he oversaw the institution’s work on several countries
in the Americas, including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and the island
economies of the Caribbean, the department’s research activities, and its flagship
product, Regional Economic Outlook (REO) for Latin America and the Caribbean.
He is a co-editor of two recent books: Brazil—Boom, Bust and the Road to
Recovery; and Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean.
Before joining WHD, Krishna was the IMF’s mission chief for the United Kingdom
and Israel, when he was a staff member of the European Department, and before
that in the Research Department, where he led the IMF’s work on the G20 in the
context of the global financial crisis. In the context of this work, he was a co-editor
of an IMF book Global Rebalancing: A Roadmap for Economic Recovery. Krishna
has been with the IMF since 1994 and has served in several departments across
the institution. He secured his PhD in International Finance from Indiana University
and a Masters from the Delhi School of Economics, India, and has published
several papers both at the IMF and in leading academic journals
Tetsushi Sonobe

Tetsushi Sonobe

Tetsushi Sonobe is the Dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Tokyo-based think tank of the Asian Development Bank that promotes the realisation of a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific through policy research and capacity building.

He obtained his PhD in Economics from Yale University and a BA in Economics from the University of Tokyo. His research interests are centered on the roles of economic agglomeration, human and social capital, management practices, and market competition in economic development, climate action, and global governance.

Before joining ADBI in April 2020, Tetsushi Sonobe served as Vice-President of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), a public policy school in Tokyo, and taught economics for thirty years at Tokyo Metropolitan University and GRIPS. In 2023, he served as the Chair of Think7, the think tank engagement group of G7 Japan. He is a recipient of the Nikkei Book Publication Prize and the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize, and is the VicePresident of the Japanese Association for Development Economics (JADE).
Venkataramani Sumantran

Venkataramani Sumantran

Venkataramani Sumantran is Chairman of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. (IndiGo Airlines) and also serves as Board Director or Advisor for several organisations in autos, industrials, and technology in the USA, Europe and Asia. He is actively engaged across a spectrum of corporations, start-ups, academia and non-profits.

He has served on the Science Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet of the Indian Government. 38 He is the co-author of the book Faster, Smarter, Greener: The Future of the Car and Urban Mobility, published by the MIT Press.

Previously, he was Executive Vice-Chairman of Hinduja Automotive, UK, as well as Vice-Chairman of Ashok Leyland Ltd. Prior to this, he was Board Director and Chief Executive Officer of TATA Motors’ car business, where he led the concept development of the affordable car – the Tata Nano. He had a 16-year career with General Motors, USA starting at their R&D Center in Detroit and subsequently as a Director of Advanced Engineering at GM-Europe.

Venkataramani Sumantran has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and a Master’s degree in Management of Technology. He was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers International (SAE) and a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineers. He is also an Honorary Professor at IIT-Delhi.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Senior Adviser, Khazanah Research Institute. He is also Fellow, Academy of Science, Malaysia; Emeritus Professor, University of Malaya; and Visiting Fellow, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University. He was on the Malaysian Economic Action Council (2019-20), and the Council of Eminent Persons (2018); UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development (2005-12); Research Coordinator, G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development (2006-12); Assistant Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2012-15); and third Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies, Malaysia (2016-7). He received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Jomo has authored and edited over a hundred books and translated 12 volumes besides many academic papers and media articles. He was Professor, University of Malaya until 2004; Founder Director (1978-2004) of the Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN); Founder Chair (2001-2004) of IDEAs, International Development Economics Associates; member of the National Economic Consultative Council (1989-91); President, Malaysian Social Science Association; and Founding Convenor, International Malaysian Studies Conference. He was on the Board of the UN Research Institute on Social Development, Geneva, and serves on the editorial boards of several learned journals.
Nobuo Tanaka

Nobuo Tanaka

Nobuo Tanaka is Chairman of the steering committee of the Innovation for Cool
Earth Forum (ICEF), which was established by former Japan Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe in 2014. He was Chairman and President of the Sasakawa Peace
Foundation from 2015-2020. As Executive Director of the International Energy
Agency (IEA) from 2007-2011, he initiated a collective release of oil stocks in
June 2011. He also played a crucial and personal role in the strengthening of
ties with major non-member energy players, including China and India.

He began his career in 1973 in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI), and has served in a number of high-ranking positions, including
Director-General of the Multilateral Trade System Department. He was deeply
engaged in bilateral trade issues with the US as Minister for Industry, Trade and
Energy at the Embassy of Japan, Washington DC. He has also served twice
as Director for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) of the Paris-based
international organisation, OECD. As CEO of Tanaka Global Inc, he advises
several Japanese and international companies.

He graduated from University of Tokyo and has an MBA from Case Western
Reserve University. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Center on
Global Energy Policy, Columbia University and Institute of Energy Economics,
Japan (IEEJ). He chairs the Study Group on Next Generation Nuclear Energy
Utilization at Canon Institute of Global Studies (CIGS).
Heiwai Tang

Heiwai Tang

Heiwai Tang is Victor and William Fung Professor in Economics, Director of the Asia Global Institute and Associate Dean (External Relations) of the Business School at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Prior to joining HKU, he was tenured Associate Professor of International Economics at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He is also affiliated with the Center of Economic Studies and Ifo Institute, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Globalization and Economic Policy Center as a Research Fellow.

He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank; and held visiting positions at the IMF, Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. He is currently Managing Editor of Pacific Economic Review, and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Comparative Economics and the China Economic Review. Since 2021, he has served on a number of public and regulatory bodies in Hong Kong SAR, including as a member of the Currency Board Sub-Committee of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Exchange Fund Advisory Committee; Industry Advisory Committee of the Insurance Authority; Securities and Futures Appeals Tribunal; and the Minimum Wage Commission, among others.
Rahul Tongia

Rahul Tongia

Dr. Rahul Tongia is a Senior Fellow with CSEP in New Delhi, where his work focuses on technology and policy, especially for sustainable development. He leads the Energy, Natural Resources, and Sustainability group at CSEP, and is also active in broader issues of technology. Tongia’s work spans the entire gamut of energy and electricity, with focuses on supply options including renewable energy (covering finance, grid integration, etc.); smart grids, which use innovative information and communications technology to improve management of the electric utility grid; issues of access and quality; and broader issues of reforms and regulations, including electricity pricing. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and was the founding Technical Member for the Government of India’s Smart Grid Task Force. Rahul Tongia is also a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
Shujiro Urata

Shujiro Urata

Shujiro Urata is Chairman of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He is also Professor Emeritus, Waseda University; Senior Research Advisor, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA); Specially Appointed Fellow at the Japanese Centre for Economic Research (JCER); Visiting Fellow, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI); and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO).

Professor Urata received his BA in Economics from Keio University, MA and PhD in Economics from Stanford University. He is a former Research Associate at the Brookings Institution and an economist at the World Bank. He specialises in international economics and has published several books and articles on international economic issues. His recent books include Achieving Inclusive Growth in the Asia Pacific, co-editor, Australian National University Press, 2020; Enhancing SME Participation in Global Value Chains, editor, Asian Development Bank Institute, 2021; The Effect of Globalisation on Firm and Labour Performance, co-editor, Routledge, 2021; Globalization and Its Economic Consequences: Looking at APEC Economies, co-editor, Routledge, 2021; Sustainable Development Disciplines for Humanity, co-editor, Springer, Singapore, 2022; and Sustainable Development Disciplines for Society, co-editor, Springer, Singapore, 2022.
Sandhya Venkateswaran

Sandhya Venkateswaran

Sandhya Venkateswaran is a Senior Fellow at CSEP and leads the Human Development work at CSEP, with a specific focus on Health Policy. In a career spanning over three decades, she has worked on a wide range of issues in the social sector including health, nutrition, gender, natural resources, urban development and others, and has authored books, multiple articles and other publications on varied social sector issues. Over the last 15 years her focus has been on policy issues, developing and leading the policy and advocacy portfolio in organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and CARE. She has worked with grassroots campaigns and civil society organisations, as well as with government and international organisations. She is currently a member of the Lancet Citizens Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System.
Tetsuya Watanabe

Tetsuya Watanabe

Tetsuya Watanabe is Special Advisor to the President, ERIA (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia), the international organisation established by East Asia Summit Member countries, located in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is also a Visiting Professor at Graduate School of Public Policy, the University of Tokyo.

His expertise covers geopolitics, economic security, global trade policy and supply chains, climate change, energy security, innovation policy, digital transformation and Asia’s regional integration.

Before joining ERIA, he was Special Advisor to the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. Throughout his career in the public service, he was involved in Japan’s major trade policy initiatives and negotiations including the TPP, RCEP, Japan-US Trade Agreement, Japan-UK Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the WTO Reforms as Director General for the Trade Policy at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Chief Counsellor of the TPP Headquarters at the Cabinet Secretariat.

He graduated from the University of Tokyo and Columbia Law School.
Dushni Weerakoon

Dushni Weerakoon

Dushni Weerakoon is the Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) and Head of its Macroeconomic Policy Research. Her research and publications cover areas related to macroeconomic policy, regional trade integration, and international economics. She has extensive experience working in policy development committees of the Government of Sri Lanka, working as a consultant to international development organisations, and serving as a director on the boards of corporate and academic entities. She holds a BSc in Economics with First Class Honors from the Queen’s University of Belfast, UK, and an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester, UK.
Yang Yao

Yang Yao

Yang Yao is a Liberal Arts Chair Professor at the China Center for Economic Research (CCER) and the National School of Development (NSD), Peking University. He currently serves as the Director of CCER; the Executive Dean of the ISSCAD; and the Editor of CCER’s house journal China Economic Quarterly. He was the Dean of the NSD from November 2012 to January 2024.

He serves as the Chairman of China Economic Annual Meetings and Chairman of the Foundation of Modern Economics. He is a member of China Economist 50 Forum. His research interests include economic transition and development in China. He has published more than a hundred research papers in international 42 and domestic journals including China Social Sciences, American Economic Review and American Political Science Review. He has published or edited more than a dozen books on institutional economics, political economy and economic development in China. He is also a prolific writer for magazines and newspapers, including the Financial Times and the Project Syndicate.

Yang Yao was awarded the 2008 and 2014 Sun Yefang Award in Economic Science, the 2008 and 2010 Pu Shan Award in International Economics and the 2008 Zhang Peigang Award in Development Economics and was named the Best Teacher by the PKU Student Union in 2006 and the Best Advisor by the PKU Graduate Students Union in 2017.

He obtained a BS in Geography in 1986 and an MS in Economics in 1989, both from Peking University, and his PhD in Development Economics from the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1996.
Bernard Yeung

Bernard Yeung

Bernard Yeung is Emeritus and Founding President of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research and Professor Emeritus at the National University of Singapore Business School. He is also a Yangtze River Scholar in China.

From 2008 to 2023, he was the Stephen Riady Distinguished Finance and Strategic Management Professor at the NUS Business School and served as the Dean from 2008 to 2019. He was also the President of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research from 2003 to 2023. Before joining NUS, he was the Abraham Krasnoff Professor at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business and the Director of the NYU China House. Before then, he taught at the University of Michigan (1988-1999) and the University of Alberta (1983-1988).

He has published widely cited work in top-tier academic journals covering Finance, Economics, Strategy, and International Business topics. He was awarded the Public Administration Silver Medal (2018) in Singapore, the Irwin Outstanding Educator Award (2013) from the Academy of Management and is an elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business.

He was a member of the Economic Strategies Committee in Singapore (2009); a member of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) (2016-2018); and a member of the Financial Research Council of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (2010-2013).

He received his BA from the University of Western Ontario and his MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Tao Zhang

Tao Zhang

Tao Zhang has been Chief Representative of the BIS Office of Asia and the Pacific since September 2022. As a member of the BIS senior management, he takes the lead in its activities in Asia and the Pacific.

He has extensive experiences both in the international arena and at the national level in China. He served as Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC during 2016-2021. He also held senior positions in China, including Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Chairman of the Supervisory Board at the People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited. Earlier in his career, he had worked as an economist at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

He has a PhD in International Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA and a Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University, China.

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India In Asia: Deeper Engagement

New Industrial Policies: Asian Perspectives

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