World Bank will not provide loans to Greece - president

STOCKHOLM - The World Bank will limit its work in Greece to offering expertise, and will not provide loans, the bank's president, Jim Yong Kim, said on Tuesday.

"We will not lend money to Greece" because "this is not a country that qualifies, for example, for an IBRD loan," Kim told a press conference in Stockholm.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an arm of the World Bank which extends loans to governments, but Greece is classed as a "high income" country, rather than the "middle income" states to which it typically lends.

Hungary, another high income country, was made an exception to the US-based bank's rule in 2008 when it received a loan that was part of an aid plan coordinated by the European Union and the IMF.

The World Bank said in November that Greece had requested its expertise on the issues of how to improve its business climate, and how to boost growth.

On Tuesday, Kim suggested that Greece could benefit from the bank's experience in another area: "We have a lot of experience in assessing whether particular social sector expenditures are actually achieving the desired outcome," he said.

"For example we worked in Korea during the crisis in the 1990s, we worked in Indonesia. We worked in many countries that have had very similar experiences with the ones that countries in Southern Europe are going through," he added.

"We're hoping to be helpful whenever we can. But again, we're an organisation that works on request. People have to come to us."

source: interaksyon.com

World Bank President Known Monday

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The World Bank will meet on Monday to decide which of three candidates will be its 12th president, after a historic campaign that saw the first serious challenge to US leadership of the institution.

According to a source close to the decision making process, the World Bank's board will convene Monday to choose between American nominee Jim Yong Kim and two candidates who embody developing countries' demands to have a bigger say in global governance.

Though Kim remains the odds-on favorite to win, Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Colombian Jose Antonio Ocampo have transformed what is normally a US coronation into a fully-fledged battle of succession.

Thanks to a tacit agreement, the US, the Bank's biggest stakeholder, has always chosen its leader, with support from Europe, which in turn nominates the head of the International Monetary Fund.

Widely respected Nigerian finance minister Okonjo-Iweala and Colombian former finance minister Ocampo, have given voice to demands from Africa, Asia and Latin America, that the arrangement must end.

Forced onto the back foot, President Barack Obama and his administration have pushed back hard for Kim's nomination.

The Korea-born, US-raised physician has gone on a global charm offensive.

In an interview statement to the board of directors on Wednesday, Kim vowed to bring a listening ear and objectivity to the post.

As head of the World Bank, the president plays a crucial running an organization that doled out $57.3 billion last year and has more than 9,000 employees worldwide.

"If I were entrusted with the responsibility of leading this institution, you would find in me someone who asks hard questions about the status quo and is not afraid to challenge existing orthodoxies," he said.

A Harvard-trained doctor and anthropologist, Kim, 52, is the former director of the department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. He became the president of the Ivy League college Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, in July 2009. "You'd also find someone interested in listening – to the Board, to our clients, to staff both here and in the field and to stakeholders in the private sector and civil society."

source: mb.com.ph