Shotaro KUMAGAI is an economist at Japan Research Institute (JRI) with a special focus on Thailand, India, and ASEAN. He has more than 10 years of macro-economic research experience. He has been providing macroeconomic information to both Japanese corporate and government through various publications. He was on the secondment as a policy researcher at Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) of Cabinet Office between 2011 and 2012. From 2015 to 2017, he was on the secondment as an economic researcher at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in Singapore. He has an M.A. in Economics from The University of Tokyo and a B.A. in Economics from Sophia University.