Dr Syed Hasanat Shah is Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence for the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. He has previously served at Quaid-i-Azam University and the State Bank of Pakistan, and worked on Belt and Road Initiative projects at Jilin University, China. He specialises in international trade, foreign direct investment, regional connectivity and digitalisation, and has supervised students from Europe, Africa and Asia. His research has been published in journals including Finance Research Letters, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Applied Economics, Journal of Policy Modeling and Energy Policy. Dr Shah has received two Organizational Competence Awards from the State Bank of Pakistan and the Excellent Foreign Expert Award from China’s Jilin Province. He holds a PhD in World Economy from Jilin University.