World Bank chief to meet Prime Minister Manmonah Singh, FM tomorrow

NEW DELHI: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim's three-day India visit begins tomorrow and he will hold discussions with Prime Minister Manmonah Singh and other top leaders on development challenges being faced by the country.

He will meet the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram tomorrow and discuss India's major initiatives to foster equitable growth.

During the visit, the first by Kim after taking over as President of the World Bank Group last July, he is also scheduled to meet Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Kim would visit Lucknow and Kanpur and see development challenges in the state which accounts for the largest number of India's poor.

He would also meet representatives of the private sector and the civil society to gather information on and look at opportunities for enhancing its role in reducing poverty at an accelerated pace, the World Bank said in a release.

"India has vast and valuable development experience, and I am eager to learn about its success stories to see how they could provide lessons for other countries," Kim said in the release.

The World Bank Group President visits India at a time when it is rapidly urbanising, with 10 million Indians moving every year into towns and cities from the rural hinterland.

India is the largest client of the World Bank Group. Between 2009 and 2013, the Group had extended around USD 25.5 billion loans to India. This includes $12 billion from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), USD 8.3 billion from the International Development Association (IDA) and a further $5.2 billion in investments from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).