India looking for increased capital support from World Bank: Arun Jaitley

WASHINGTON: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a meeting with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim here to suggest exploring innovative financing solutions as India was looking at an increased capital support from it, an official statement said on Thursday.

"While discussing the policy issues related to the World Bank Group, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley indicated India's strong support for the capital increase and its readiness to take larger share than the dynamic formula would require," Finance Ministry said in a statement.

He also emphasised that the World Bank Group should work together with the member countries to explore innovative financing solutions.

The meeting held on Wednesday acknowledged the long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship between the World Bank Group and India, especially the former's in the six priority areas identified for the multilateral development bank's assistance.

Later in the evening, Jaitley interacted with several US State Department officials during the reception hosted in his honour.

Jaitley is currently on official tour to Washington to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and other associated meetings. He is accompanied by Urijit Patel, Governor, RBI; Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Economic Affairs and Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor.

"Das held a bilateral meeting with United States Treasury Under-Secretary Nathan Sheets. Both sides took stock of the work done on technical cooperation on National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, public debt management and municipal bonds and agreed to expedite progress on these issues," the statement added.