Professor Al Faris is Deputy Secretary General for Economic Affairs at Dubai Economic Council. He has held several academic and official positions, including Professor of Economics at UAE University, Associate Dean for Scientific Research at the College of Business, UAE University, Alternate Executive Director at the IMF (1999-2001), and Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford, MIT, Dundee University, and OPEC. He has also held several governmental positions in the UAE, including Assistant under Secretary for Planning, Ministry of Education. In addition, he has worked as a consultant to UNDP, Crown Prince Court (Abu Dhabi), Ministry of Economy, National Assemble, Dubai municipality, Department of Economy (Dubai), and Economic Advisor to Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Tanmia. His research interests include energy markets, labour markets, poverty, and macroeconomics and public finance. He has published 14 books, and numerous articles in international journals.
Raimundo Soto is Associate Professor of Economics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Professor Soto specializes in macroeconomic theory and econometrics and has published extensively in international journals covering long-run growth, exchange rate misalignment, and monetary policy, as well as corruption, resource curse, institutions, and labor markets. He has been visiting scholar in institutions in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America and international organizations such as the World Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Professor Soto served as President of the Chilean Economic Association and, between 2010 and 2012, he was Director of International Development at the Dubai Economic Council.