World Bank refocuses in China
( 2002-05-31 09:16 ) (9 )

The World Bank's future lending to China will be in the range of US$1.3 billion to US$1.5 billion each year, the bank's president said Thursday, as the bank refocuses its poverty-relief efforts in the world's most populous country.

"I think we've done a lot but we have decades more of work to do," James Wolfensohn told a news conference in Beijing.

He said projects in China will focus on aiding poor rural areas, assisting economic reforms, boosting the role of the private sector and cleaning up China's environment.

Since 1992, the bank's lending to China has averaged more than US$2 billion annually, peaking at US$3.1 billion in 1993. It has lent about US$35 billion in total to China since its first project in 1981.

However, lending has fallen since 2000, when China's growing wealth made it ineligible for the bank's cheapest financing, which is reserved for the poorest countries.

The bank regards that as a mark of its success in China, and Wolfensohn praised the country's economic policy record, which he said had lifted 250 million people out of poverty over the past 20 years.

He said China has criticized the bank for failing to understand the country. He indicated that future World Bank projects will follow the government's lead. "We will do what the government establishes as its priorities," he said.

Reflecting the bank's view of China as an increasingly mature partner, Wolfensohn said it's preparing a loan to Shanghai that will be the country's first under a flexible system called an Adaptable Program Loan.

"It will be different in form in that it isn't specifically regulated but rather a loan in support of a municipality with which we now have an extraordinarily good relationship," he said.