Ben Simpfendorfer is Chief China Economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was previously Senior China Economist for JPMorgan Chase. He has lived in Hong Kong for over a decade where he writes for a global investor audience. He started his career in the Middle East, and has lived in Amman, Beirut, and Damascus.
He appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg, and his editorials have appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Affairs.
He is one of the world’s leading experts on relations between China and the Middle East. His book, The New Silk Road: How A Rising Arab World Is Turning Away From The West And Rediscovering China was published in April 2009 by Palgrave Macmillan. Simpfendorfer speaks Arabic and Chinese. He reads media ranging from Chinese-language blogs to Arabic-language newspapers. He travels constantly across the region to speak with senior officials in Beijing to local traders in Cairo.
He has spoken on the subject at the U.S. State Department, Council on Foreign Relations, Dubai School of Government, and Asia Society, among other institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Dubai, Kuwait, Riyadh, Qatar, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Washington, New York, and San Francisco.
