The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are delighted to invite you to a virtual panel discussion on: Sustaining Global Value Chains
About the Discussion:
Asian economies, to different extents and in different ways, have integrated participation in Global Value Chains (GVCs) into their growth models. Infrastructure quality and capacity have been critical to this integration and will determine the agility and resilience of GVCs to challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, increased trade tensions, rapid technological development, and environmental pressures. Using case studies from India and China, the presentation will focus on how GVCs can aid countries to become internationally competitive, and on the need for quality infrastructure to make GVCs spatially and economically inclusive. Improving port-hinterland connectivity is seen to deliver major gains in India. With the world taking increased cognizance of climate challenges, ‘green’ infrastructure, will become key to sustaining future GVCs.
About the Speakers
Erik Berglof sets the vision and strategy for the Economics Department and leads the planning, implementation and supervision of its work plan in support of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) mandate. He is the Bank’s inaugural Chief Economist. Prior to joining AIIB in September 2020, he was Director of the Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics, and Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 2006 to 2015, where he was part of creating and co-led the Vienna Initiative, a European crisis response team credited with mitigating the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. He is an expert in transition economics and institutional transformation through private sector development. He holds a PhD in Financial Economics and an MA in Business and Economics, both from the Stockholm School of Economics. Berglof is from Sweden.
Rajiv B. Lall has over close to four decades of experience in academia, international public policy, investment banking, private equity and corporate and retail banking. Having earned a B.A. Honours from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, he spent his professional career at the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, Morgan Stanley, Warburg Pincus and IDFC Bank. His expertise spans infrastructure finance, sustainable and impact investing, capital markets, international trade, and macroeconomic policy issues across Southeast Asia, China, Africa, the U.S. and India. He has played an active role in shaping the finance and policy landscape internationally through his writings and participation in numerous government committees and fora. He was Executive Chairman of IDFC Ltd., a public private partnership focused on infrastructure finance, was Founder CEO of IDFC Bank, now known as IDFC First Bank. He set up IDFC Institute, one of India’s emerging think tanks and has made pioneering contributions to the development of India’s impact investing and micro-finance industries. He is currently Professorial Research Fellow at the Singapore Management University where he also serves on the Management Committee of the Singapore Green Finance Centre.
Rupa Chanda is currently the Director of Trade, Investment and Innovation at UNESCAP, Bangkok. She is on leave from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore where she has been a Professor of Economics for over 25 years. She has earlier worked as an Economist at the IMF and also briefly served as Head, UNESCAP Subregional Office for South and South-West Asia in New Delhi. Prof. Chanda received her PhD in Economics from Columbia University and her Bachelor’s from Harvard University. She teaches Macroeconomics and International Trade and has received teaching awards. Her research interests include the WTO, trade in services, regional integration and migration. She has undertaken research and professional assignments for international and Indian organizations and has published extensively in the form of books, journal articles, book chapters, and reports. She is active professionally as a research guide, reviewer, and member of several expert committees. She was member of the WHO’s Review Committee on the functioning of the International Health Regulations (2015-16) and the WHO’s Expert Advisory Group, International Recruitment of Health Personnel (2019-20).
Suman Bery, based in New Delhi, is currently a Global Fellow in the Asia program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He is a Non-resident Fellow of Bruegel, an economic policy research institution located in Brussels. In addition to his affiliation with Bruegel, Suman continues as a Global Fellow of the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth. From early 2012 till mid-2016 Suman Bery was Chief Economist of Shell International, based in The Hague, The Netherlands and advised the Board and management of Royal Dutch Shell on global economic and political developments. He also was part of the senior leadership of Shell’s global scenarios group. While at Shell he led a collaborative project with Indian think tanks to apply scenario modelling to India’s energy sector. Suman had earlier served as Director-General (Chief Executive) of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi. In his decade leading NCAER Suman was at various times member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council; of India’s Statistical Commission; and of the Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary Policy. He commented extensively in the media on economic issues, contributing a monthly column for a business newspaper. Prior to NCAER, Suman was with the World Bank in Washington DC which he joined through the Young Professionals’ Program. His career at the Bank spanned research on financial sector development and country policy and strategy, notably in Latin America and the Caribbean. His country experience included Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. His experience on financial sector reform in Latin America was deployed as a Special Consultant to the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between 1992 and 1994. His professional writing includes contributions on the political economy of reform, financial sector and banking reform, and energy trends and policy. His graduate degree in public policy was at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, following an undergraduate degree (in Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Magdalen College, University of Oxford.
