James Zhan

Director of Investment and Enterprise

James Zhan is Director of Investment and Enterprise at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). He is Chief Editor of the annual UN World Investment Report.

Dr. Zhan has over two decades of national and international experience in the areas of trade, investment, technology, business facilitation and enterprise development, including directing policy research, international consensus-building and providing technical assistance to governments, parliaments and institutions in over 160 countries. He led the formulation of global guidelines for a new generation of investment policies (the Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development), and the establishment of the biennial of the World Investment Forum.

Dr. Zhan has a PhD in international economics, and was a research fellow at Oxford University. He holds a number of advisory positions with academic institutions, including Cambridge University, Columbia University, Oxford University and the University of Geneva. He is also Global Agenda Council member of the World Economic Forum. He has published extensively on trade and investment-related economic and legal issues. Dr. Zhan is a regular speaker at academic, business and policy forums, as well as parliamentary hearings and appears frequently in international media outlets.