The World Bank is ready to commit almost $18 billion in loans to India over the next three years, its President said in New Delhi on Wednesday, where he also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Over the next three years on the public side of operations we can provide India with $15-18 billion and on the private side (IFC) of things a minimum of $3.5 billion," World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said in New Delhi, reported Press Trust of India.
This decision is in line with improving India's economic growth, Yong Kim said. "The new government would like India to return to a growth rate of 9 percent and the World Bank fully supports this growth," he noted.
India is the largest client for the World Bank Group, PTI reported. India received $5.2 billion loan last fiscal and in the past three years, India has received about $9.8 billion loan from the World Bank Group.
Kim also welcomed the recent announcement of the New Development Bank by the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Modi talked about his "fruitful" meeting with the World Bank President in a series of tweets, wherein he said that India was more interested in the knowledge and expertise of the World Bank instead of the dollars.
Modi also said that he suggested to Yong Kim that the World Bank could look into the cleaning of the Ganga, a project close to the Prime Minister's heart.
My meeting with @WorldBank President Mr. Jim Yong Kim was very fruitful. We discussed several ways of working together in the times to come.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
We talked about the importance of scale & the need to work on a scale that inspires people & positively transforms their lives. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
We live in a world where speed matters. Quick execution is essential. Speeding up @WorldBank projects will surely increase the impact.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
Rather than dollars, we are more interested in knowledge & expertise of @WorldBank. Dr. Kim agreed & said WB can be our information bank. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
We want ideas from the @WorldBank not only on mass production but also on production by masses, which will benefit our workforce.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
Today the world focuses on trade in goods but in future the core issue will be how to get skilled people. We need to work in this direction. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
I also suggested to Dr. Jim Yong Kim that the cleaning of the Ganga would be a very inspiring project for the @WorldBank.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2014
Yong Kim also praised the Gujarat model and expressed confidence that business in India could improve under Modi, adding that the nation's ranking of doing business would improve by 50 places if it were based only on business done in the state of Gujarat.
