World Bank Chief to Meet Arun Jaitley on Tuesday: Report
New Delhi: World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to review key development priorities, according to a source.
Kim, who reached India on Monday, visited the state of Tamil Nadu on the same day.
"Tamil Nadu continues to be a source of development knowledge for projects across the world," Kim said.
The World Bank group feels urbanisation can improve lives as 10 million people move into towns and cities every year in India and that power utilities in the country are not run on commercial lines, leading to poor performance.
"The historic mandate from the people of India representsa tremendous opportunity to unlock India's growth potential and take advantage of its immense demographic dividend," Kim said in a statement by the World Bank.
"I look forward to meeting Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Jaitley to understand their development priorities, and determine how the financial and knowledge resources of the World Bank Group can be best allocated to support them," he added.
In Tamil Nadu, Kim visited World Bank-supported project sites to see the challenges of India's rural-urban transformation, and how, empowered with the right skills, rural women in the state are taking advantage of emerging urban employment opportunities.
International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has successfully mobilised its $1-billion offshore rupee bond program, aimed at strengthening India's capital markets and attracting foreign investments, the statement said.
India is home to the largest operations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
World Bank Group assistance to India amounted to $6.4 billion between July 2013 and June 2014. This included $2 billion from IBRD, $3.1 billion from IDA, and $100 million from the Clean Technology Fund that the World Bank Group administers.
During that period, the IFC committed $1.2 billion in India.
