José R. Sánchez-Fung

José R. Sánchez-Fung is the Dominican Republic’s ambassador and permanent representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, Switzerland. Preceding the appointment in Geneva, Dr Sánchez-Fung was ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and head of the diplomatic mission, of the Dominican Republic to Switzerland, based in Bern. 

Before joining his country’s foreign service, Dr Sánchez-Fung taught economics for over two decades at the University of Nottingham (Ningbo, China), Kingston University London (with tenure), and the University of Kent (Canterbury, UK). His professional teaching career merited fellowship of the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Academy.

He currently holds an adjunct professorship in economics at Western Michigan University.

Dr Sánchez-Fung’s academic research focuses on empirical and policy-relevant issues with particular emphasis on open-economy macroeconomics and monetary policy, and development economics and policy; central banks and their policies is a key theme in his long-term research agenda. He is co-author of the textbook Monetary Economics in Developing Countries (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2007).

Dr Sánchez-Fung is currently serving as a member of the international editorial board of the peer-reviewed academic journal Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies.

Ambassador Sánchez-Fung’s national public service includes working as an economist in the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo in the role of director of economic research, and voting member of the monetary policy-making Open Market Committee. He has also served as an honorific advisor to the Dominican Republic’s Senate -the upper house of the national parliament.                                                                          

Dr Sánchez-Fung has also been affiliated with the Bank of Finland in Helsinki, and with the People’s Bank of China-University of Nottingham joint research center in Ningbo. He also held visiting researcher positions at Columbia University’s ILAS-School of International and Public Affairs, Fudan University in Shanghai, Georgetown University’s CLAS-Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the University of Oxford’s St Antony’s College.

José R. Sánchez-Fung holds an undergraduate degree in economics from PUCMM in Santo Domingo, and MA and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.