Ananthakrishnan Prasad is Deputy Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department (MCD) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Mission Chief for Kuwait and Oman.  He holds a PhD from the University of Bombay, India; MBA in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh, USA; and Master of Commerce from the University of Bombay, India. He has several publications on macroeconomic and financial sector issues and is the author of the book on the Macroeconomics of the Arab States of the Gulf, jointly published by the IMF and Oxford University Press (2013).