Eckart Woertz

Dr. Eckart Woertz served as Director of Economic Studies at the GRC until October 2010. He has been a visiting fellow at Princeton University and has held senior positions in financial services companies in Germany and the UAE, amongst them Delbrück & Co one of the oldest German private banks. His research interests include the political economy of the Middle East, financial markets and energy issues. Dr. Woertz is a regular contributor to the region’s leading newspapers and TV channels. In February 2005, he published The Role of Gold in the Unified GCC Currency, where he predicted a long-term bull market in the precious metal. In his GRC publication GCC Stock Markets at Risk, he warned at the beginning of 2006 about the following stock market crash in the GCC. He has also dealt extensively with petrodollar recycling, strategic foreign investments and the impact of the global financial crisis on the GCC countries. Since 2008 Middle East food security has been special interests of his. He holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and a PhD in Economics from Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he conducted research about structural adjustment politics in Egypt.